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 Inmates Help With Flood Relief Efforts

“Our staff, facilities and the inmate work crews have been out on the front lines doing clean up and protecting communities from flood waters,” said acting Illinois Department of Corrections Director S.A. Godinez in a statement issued Monday.

Inmate crews have filled more than 468,000 sandbags and worked 30,000 hours since April 24, according to the Illinois Depart-ment of Corrections. Prisoners traveled from Tamms, Menard and Vienna correctional centers; Du Quoin and Dixon Springs boot camps; and Hardin County Work Camp. They have assisted areas in Alexander, Pulaski, Union, Jackson, Massac, Pope, Hardin, Gallatin and White counties.

Crews also have been helping with storm cleanup and providing laundry service for the Illinois National Guard.”

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Emergency workers, citizens, utility company personnel, and many others have all been working around the clock for weeks in a desperate effort to prevent the massive river flooding which now extends from counties in southern Illinois throughout the Mississippi River basin states down to the Gulf of Mexico. Flooding on this scale is unprecedented, and entire communities are in danger of loss of life and property.

Few are aware that from the very start of this emergency crisis,  many inmates in Illinois state prisons and prisons throughout the affected areas have also been caught up and affected by this crisis. With many state prisons already short-staffed and access to them restricted by flooded roads, many of the prisons in southern Illinois have been placed on extended periods of lockdown restricting inmate movement. Yard hours and outside recreation activities have been suspended for most during this time.

Rather than complaining about this situation and the hardships they are enduring, prison inmates have from the outset stepped forward and volunteered their help to the relief effort by helping directly with sandbagging duties and other relief activities such as clearing debris.  Working outside in dry and wet weather on a daily basis, inmates have been working in two-hour shifts for some times 6 to 8 hours a day, filling sandbags and loading them into truck-after-truck pulling up into prison grounds.

Prison inmates are working without reward on this effort, but many of them have friends and family throughout the region. While they cannot be there to assist their loved ones, state prison inmates have shown their concern by doing what they can to help out everyone affected by the threat of flooding. State prisoners deserve all the recognition they can get for their efforts.

Too many times, prisoners are lambasted in the media and criticize by the public for being uncaring troublemakers.  Public officials often manipulate the public’s perception of inmates in order to whip up public frenzy over “crime”. This was particularly the case during the last election in the state of Illinois, when politicians and the media significantly mischaracterized criminals to such an extent that IL Gov. Pat Quinn was pressured into ending all early release prison programs and suspending the awarding of any additional Meritorious Good Time credits (MGT) to all Illinois state prisoners.  MGT still remains suspended, and while our state politicians have forgotten about their role in creating this mess in the first place, the families of thousands of inmates who would otherwise be now released from prison, remain stuck in hardship as a result.

So, it is only fair to applaud the hard work and dedication shown throughout our state prison facilities by our prison inmates who are laboring almost continuously to help out the state in this great time of need. The public needs to understand that regardless of their individual infractions, prisoners cannot be stereotyped. There are many individuals in state prisons who show responsibility and who are also willing to help out others in need without the incentive of any compensation. The public needs to perceive this and, likewise show some support for prisoners when they in turn need our understanding.

Editor’s Note: You can show appreciation for the work of these inmates in a way that will matter by contacting IL Governor Pat Quinn (here), Lt. Governor Sheila Simon (here) or your state legislator (here) and sending them an email mentioning that IL prison inmates should receive recognition and credit for the help they have provided to the state during this flood crisis.

Last line of defence: Young and old rush to fill sandbags as four MILLION people face record-breaking floods sweeping the Mississippi delta

By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 12:36 AM on 8th May 2011