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| Group continues push for paper at Stateville |
| By Chicago Tribune |
| Published: 02/16/2004 |
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A newly formed group that advocates allowing prisoners at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet, Ill. to publish a newspaper appealed last Monday to the governor and state corrections director to allow the presses to run. "It makes sense to me that it is much more productive to be writing an essay, writing a poem or painting a picture than sitting in a 6-by-6 cell 23 hours a day staring at your ceiling," said anti-death penalty activist Bill Ryan during a news conference. He is chairman of Friends of Stateville Speaks, the name of the yet-to-be-published quarterly newsletter. But Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Sergio Molina said the logistics of such a publication at a maximum-security prison with more than 2,500 prisoners would be too risky. Officers would have to escort prisoners through the halls, and potential weapons such as scissors and staplers would be necessary, he said. Gov. Rod Blagojevich supports the decision of Department of Corrections Director Roger Walker Jr., said Abby Ottenhoff, spokeswoman for the governor. The idea for the publication, written by inmates for the general public as well as other prisoners, came from an essay contest organized by convicted murderer Renaldo Hudson last summer, Ryan said. After 41 inmates at six of the state's prisons submitted work, Hudson suggested a newspaper. Ryan secured computers, volunteer instructors, including Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, and donations to cover printing costs. But when he called several weeks ago about installing the computers, he was told the project had not been approved. Inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La., have been putting out a publication since 1940, said assistant warden of programming Cathy Fontenot. With 90 percent of the prison's more than 5,000 inmates spending the rest of their lives at the maximum-security institution, it's important to allow them creative outlets, she said. The publication, which became a magazine in the 1970s, now reaches more than 3,500 subscribers worldwide. The group pushing for the Stateville newspaper will find a way to publish, even if it is done externally, Ryan said. |
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