Week of January 21 - LISTEN UP IDOC!!!!

[Dazzler]

LISTEN UP IDOC!!!! 



You've got a marketing genius at Tamms Correctional Center!!

Whoever designed the clever tee-shirts on display in your super-max prison shouldn't exclude family members and visitors from purchasing them.
Don't think we have a sense of humor?   Who wouldn't want to wear a designer knock-off that boasts  "TOMMY FIVE FINGER" across their chest?

Or another catchy saying: "Pen State, Tamms Correctional Center, 20-Year and Lifetime Degrees"? 

It's really unfair and insensitive of Tamms CC to taunt visitors with the display of these tastefully designed shirts and then not offer them for sale to the suffering family members of incarcerated inmates.  Why not let us share in the hilarity?  We all need a good laugh while visiting Tamms CC.  Any mother of an inmate would surely be proud to wear a souvenir shirt emblazened with Tamms Correctional Center -  "Bed and Breakfast" logo  (interior of a cell, complete with toilet), and the message "Hard Time Inn - 3 Hots and a Cot".

It sure beats one of those cheesey commercial  "My Son Went to Tamms Correctional Center and All I Got Was This Lousy Shirt" tee-shirts.  Imagine the hilarity of l'il ol' Gramps visiting his grandson behind bars wearing the craftily designed "CONS - Lifetime Workout" shirt with the cartoonish inmate lifting weights...

Just think how the Employee Benefit Fund would bulge with the added sales from these shirts?  Tamms CC staff could probably fund an additional 'employee appreciation day' picnic or even a "Friday Casual Dress Day"....just like real employers do....yeah, that's an idea...staff could wear these colorful, comedic shirts on Fridays. 

Aw Shucks, too bad the inmates can't purchase these shirts from Commissary...oh silly, I forgot, few inmates receive Commissary at Tamms CC.

Inmate friends and family would surely like to share in your fun.  After driving six or seven hours to visit an inmate, seeing your loved one shackled to the floor, behind glass...hearing their gripes about the subhuman food, quack medical treatment, intimidation, abuse and retaliation, we need a perk....

Obviously administration views the sale of these shirts amusing enough to display them for visitors....why not allow visitors to purchase them?  Why hog all these stunning shirts and hats for yourselves? 

If your sales are slumping I've got a few suggestions for the design of a new batch of shirts:

How about a bright snappy red shirt with a poor mother surrounded by crying children that reads:  My Husband Went to the IDOC and All I Got Was This Lousy $400 Phone Bill?

Now that's amusing....oops, I forgot...Tamms inmates aren't allowed to make phone calls...better ship that batch to Menard...

Or, here's another hilarious shirt logo you might consider:  Got Soy? .... Got Carp?   

And my personal favorite:  IDOC - Underworked and Overstaffed......now THAT'S funny!!!   *(%$#

FOR YOUR SHOPPING PLEASURE:

[Sister]

Very impressive writing........AND entertaining....... :)

[Jims]

Absolutely BRILLIANT!!

[RJs Mom]

Loved reading this.... great job

[dancer]

I'm never quite speechless,  but where did you get the photos of these?  I can just imagine the sick feeling a visitor gets seeing these.   Who had these printed up?   

[robertamarie]

just read this and all i could do was shake my head in disbelief, talk about heartless.

[Dazzler]

They are on public display within  Tamms CC....they were mailed to our PO Box from an unnamed source....

[downtownchicago]

Holy sh*t.  Dazzler, I'm assuming you forwarded the pictures and a complaint to IDOC and Tamms warden.  That's horrendous. 

[dancer]

Absoltely Roger Walker needs to hear about this.   I guess one of the staff at Tamms thought something needed to be said about it.. I can't imagine anyone else bringing a camera in there. 

[Dazzler]

These have been on display for at least five years now....

[Dazzler]

Dancer, they were apparently made by the staff to generate funds for their Employee Benefit Fund.  I'm not even opposed to the shirts if they were sold privately, worn around the house, just for kicks...but to put them on display...and only for staff to purchase is insulting to the families that visit their loved ones there.  It's insensitive and a slap in the face....surely they must have a lunchroom, locker room, staff breakroom where it would be less offensive to guests to the prison...it's just plain unprofessional.  At first I wasn't sure about this whole situation...until I called the prison and confirmed it myself....obviously the photos must've been taken by staff...I don't believe a visitor could have passed security with a camera and then snap eight pictures inside the gatehouse..

[dancer]

I do have a problem with them selling them for kicks or wearing them around the house.  They are insulting to the inmates. Like you said,  it is unprofessional.    Hey if they want to make them up for a fundraiser away from the prison,  ok.   But sell them in the prison?  I think that's wrong.  And display them for families to see?  Very wrong.  I am amazed we have just heard about it now.   Why do they need an employee benefit fund?  They make what,   $45,000 to start with a high school degree required?  I would bet money that a lot of the money WE pay for vending machines,  commissary, and even phone calls gets diverted to benefit staff rather than inmates.   The IDOC needs to be held accountable. 
I'm trying to imagine that phone call.   They just said,  Yes we have all those t shirts and sweatshirts for sale?  What area are they displayed in? 

[EMERALD]

Well I can say is that those T shirts were not displayed in the public area when I went last June. I will certainly look out for them when I go in April though. I thought this was all a joke!!

[Dazzler]

EMERALD, I was given the information that these shirts are displayed in a showcase in 'the tunnel'....are you familiar with that?  Also I asked if they were still on display and a family member confirmed to me that as of a few weeks ago they still were....If they are not still being displayed I will stand corrected....however, they have been on display and they have offended many family visitors.

[EMERALD]

I am familiar with the tunnel, it's where they walk you down to the visit rooms, but have to say that there was nothing that I saw that could have displayed anything, the tunnel was empty and the room at the end where we wait to be taken through had no display cabinet. They had a load of leaflets about how to get off drugs etc. Maybe this went in after that time, I will sure be looking for it in April though!

[staciousc]

I just left Tamms 12/31/06 - 01/02/07 - NO T-Shirts were displayed. I visit someone who is in C-MAX...I'm not sure about the minimum security prison area. I believe their visits are allowed in a different area.

[colorblind]

I think our complaints should be forwarded to the Governor!  Every professional field that I have been in has sensitivity training for it's employees, if those shirts have been around for years, think of the unprofessional, disrespectful attitude this cultivates among all those uneducated guards and staff.  The fact that no one removed them for years proves the pervasive negative attitudes of the people in charge.  Had I seen that, I probably would not be able to contain myself and be in the Wardens office demanding an explanation, removal and apology.
On a similar note, an officer at my last visit shook her head at me and said "I don't know why you visit!" I was shocked, and said something to the effect of loving him, and she said "There are plenty of guys out here to love, too."  I got to thinking, if these guys are so horrible, what exactly does it say about a person who chooses to work in the prison for years and years?  Do they love aggravation, danger, the attention of men?  If you don't have any compassion or understanding of people, you are the type that needs to work in a cubicle with a computer, or on a factory line welding parts together, not in a prison.  I work in a hospital, and we don't have one person there that dislikes people, and we clean vomit, wipe butts, wash the skin folds of the morbidly obese, suction trach tubes of mucus , lots of nasty stuff.  And we do it and it's not that bad to us because we care about people.  Some would say that when you are sick, it's not your fault, but really it usually was your fault, smoking, drinking, getting overweight, thats 90% of the cause of the stuff we see, just like an inmate is there, usually because of some bad decision they made.  But were all human.  I was just really insulted by what she said, and I see her there all the time for the last 2 years.  Luckily I don't care much what other people think of me....

[Sister]

if those shirts have been around for years, think of the unprofessional, disrespectful attitude this cultivates among all those uneducated guards and staff.  The fact that no one removed them for years proves the pervasive negative attitudes of the people in charge. 

That is absolutely right, Colorblind.  I had never thought of it that way. 

I don't think they have any right to question why you visit!  They all think they can judge us because of the attitude that most all employees have that work in the I.D.O.C........All inmates are trash and you are trash if you still care to visit them.  I think they treat inmates and visitors the way they do, because it is allowed and accepted by staff and society, too.  As long as society does nothing about the treatment, I don't think anything will ever change.  A prison is more or less in it's own little world with little involvement from outside society.  They also know that we are leary of saying anything to anyone about the disrespectful treatment out of fear for our inmates.
I just  go in there and visit knowing how I am going to be treated and looked at.  It's not right, though, that family gets treated that way whenever they did nothing wrong.

In my own opinion.........even the c.o.'s and other staff have no right to treat the inmates badly.......to judge them.......because when it is all said and done, we are ALL sinners.......we have ALL made mistakes,  and none of us are any better than the next person.  Only God has the right to judge us.  I also believe that an unhappy face means an unhappy heart.  I think to myself when I visit if they are rude to me...."That person must really be an unhappy person on the inside."

[Surfborg]

Can you imagine what would happen if one of us would wear a shirt like that during a visit?  We wouldn't even make it to the sign in sheet.  I did think they were kinda funny.  Not the appropriate place, for sure, but funny.

Surfy

[dancer]

I agree with you colorblind and sister also.  Now I'm really curious as to where those shirts were displayed and for how long?   
I think I have had 80 or 90 prison visits.   Only maybe three times was someone  unprofessional with me.  However I had the interstate compact person for Mn say a really outrageous and unprofessional thing to me.