NAACP urges AZ legislators to stop the new Supermax.

As posted here recently, the Joint Committee on Capital Review is meeting this Wednesday morning at 9am in the Senate Appropriations Room 109, June 12, and will be discussing the AZ Department of Corrections' request to build a news $50 million Supermax prison out a tthe Lewis complex in Buckeye. In case you missed my last post on that, here it is:

Why AZ doesn't need another Supermax prison...

from the JCCR website: "The primary powers and duties of the Joint Committee on Capital Review relate to ascertaining facts and making recommendations to the Legislature regarding state expenditures for land, buildings and improvements.  This portion of the state budget is known as “capital outlay. ”"

Below is a copy of the letter just submitted as testimony to the committee by the president of our local NAACP Rev. Oscar Tillman; NLG attorney Dianne Post was instrumental in putting it together. It's coherant and complete - she does her homework.

If you are submitting testimony to this committee, do so today - I understand there will be an opportunity to be heard tomorrow, but they usually have their minds made up beofre these meetings are even held. The DOC gets a rubber stamp on just about everything they ask for from the legislature, which needs to stop before we squander another dollar on this project - it's already sucked up over $5 million in the preparations. 

The NAACP knows just what kind of obscenity Arizona's elected officials plan to saddle future generations with - this prison is what this particular gang of 12's legacy will be, if they let it go through despite all the reasons it shouldn't. 

What will our grandchildren do with these torture facilities when our society has evolved beyond them? We will one day, you know - unless we plan to devolve and descend into more crimnality and vindictiveness and brutality as the rest of the world moves forward, which is kind of how we're heading. Anyone who thinks we can't outgrow our need to incarcerate such vast numbers of people in our country has sold humanity short. 

If you have comments for this committee, bring them in writing when you come to speak Wednesday morning (so you can be sure your text is in the record too) or hand deliver them by the end of the day Tuesday, June 11 (today!) to:

Joint Committee on Capital Review
Joint Legislative Budget Committee

AZ Legislature
1716 West Adams
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Phone: (602) 926-5491  

Call if you can't write, and let them know this new supermax is bad for AZ 

and needs to be stopped. It's up to them to do that.

Here's the letter from the NAACP, to give you an idea of just how messed up the AZ DOC is...

(For PDF click here)