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Daily Egyptian TUESDAY, MARCH 17, 2015 VOLUME 99 ISSUE 29
Dunn addresses potential cuts at town hall Austin Miller
@AMiller_DE | Daily Egyptian
Citizens smell something rotten in the state of Illinois and it smells a lot like money problems. Several SIU administrators were part of a panel to answer questions from the near 50-person audience Monday in the Student Center, hosted by the Undergraduate Student Government. SIU President Randy Dunn, Interim Dean of Students Katie Sermersheim and
Director of the Department of Public Safety Ben Newman were among the 11-person panel. Topics ranged from student health and diversity to parking, but the prominent issue was the school’s looming budget cuts. Gov. Bruce Rauner proposed his first budget on Feb. 18, calling for a 31 percent decrease in state funding to public universities. Dunn said the proposal would erase $32 million from the Carbondale campus’ budget.
The Illinois General Assembly has to vote on the bill before the end of spring and Dunn said he does not expect the full 31 percent cut to be approved. With these cuts coming in the next few months, university officials are preparing for the worst. The state budget should be finalized by May 31, but the spring session could expand into June and July, hitting the university quickly. Please see TOWN HALL · 2
Monday marks 2015’s warmest day
E llEn B ooth • D aily E gyptian Craig Morris, a freshman from Bloomington studying political science, takes advantage of the warm weather to nap between classes outside of Faner Hall on Monday, which marked the warmest day of 2015 with a high of 74.
Inmate literacy lessens reincarceration, group says Jessica Brown
@BrownJessicaJ | Daily Egyptian
Fifty-one percent of Illinois inmates have been previously incarcerated. Barbara Kessel, a founder of a volunteer organization known as 3R’s, or Reading Reduces Recidivism, said inmates reoffend because of the absence of literacy and education programs. Recidivism refers to the incarceration of inmates who commit new crimes after release. This rate, as well as prison population in general, is particularly high in Illinois. “The prison system is like 151 percent full,” Kessel said. “It’s way overcrowded.” Kessel, a retired teacher, said she had always placed a major emphasis on reading while teaching her students. Because of her background in education, when she heard of a volunteer program called Books to Prisoners in 2004, she was interested immediately. Books to Prisoners is the organization 3R’s grew out of. Members of Books to Prisoners mail books to inmates in Illinois who write to the organization and ask for a type of book or a particular author. The members get these books from local donations. The idea of dealing with prison libraries directly soon came about within
the organization. While attempting to contact the state prisons’ libraries, Kessel became aware of the inadequacies of prison libraries. “About nine prisons had no library because they had no librarian,” she said. “We can’t give them books if they don’t have a librarian.” This was not the only problem. “We thought the libraries were filled with books,” Kessel said. “We discovered in talking to librarians that the budget for libraries was cut at the state level in 2002. From that point on, they have no money in the budget to buy books.” In fact, a vast majority of the books in the prison libraries were not provided by the state but were leftovers from Books to Prisoners. Books sent to prisoners cannot always be kept in the prisoners’ cells, Kessel said. Inmates are not permitted to have many belongings within the cells because of space constraints. Oftentimes, cells that were meant for one person have two people living inside of them, she said. Because of this, a prisoner will sometimes donate his or her read books to the prison library to acquire others. “We didn’t know they had no books, no money to buy books and they got their books from us,” Kessel said. “That
‘‘I
t’s very foolish to not educate people. We should do everything possible to help a person improve their condition in life.
was when we decided we needed to fill this need.” So in 2010, the first chapter of Reading Reduces Recidivism was born in Oak Park. The organization focuses on state prisons rather than federal. There are five federal prisons and 26 state prisons in Illinois. Since its beginning, 3R’s has established chapters in Macomb, Savannah, Crystal Lake, ChampaignUrbana and Carbondale. Carbondale, one of the larger chapters, caters to Big Muddy River Correctional Center, Pinckneyville Correctional Center, Shawnee Correctional Center, Vandalia Correctional Center, Vienna Correctional Center and the Illinois Youth Center in Harrisburg. “The prison-industrial complex of the whole incarceration system in our nation is incredibly cruel,”
— Maureen Pyle 3 R’s member said Sarah Lewison, co-founder of the Carbondale chapter and an SIU professor in the Radio, Television and Digital Media department. “It doesn’t actually serve the needs of all the people. I am against incarceration, and this is a small act of compassion.” M.J. Smerken, another co-founder, said the chapter started out relatively small, but as word spread, it began to grow within the community. The Carbondale Public Library, First Christian Church and the Sallie Logan Public Library in Murphysboro are now primary donors, recieving their books from leftover book sales and donations. Reading Reduces Recidivism reached out to Maureen Pyle, a member of a local Quaker group with a strong interest in prison reform. Pyle and Diane Brawley-Sussman, librarian of the Carbondale Public Library, played a major role in revamping
of the organization’s efficiency. Pyle asked the pastor of First Christian Church, Katherine Graves, for help. Graves offered a storage space for the books located next to the Carbondale Public Library, which helped widen the variety of books 3R’s can provide to prisons. Brawley-Sussman contacted and gained rapport with prison librarians around the area. Instead of the organization sending books to prisons with no indication of what they would need, the prison librarians now come pick out their own books based on their needs and the prisoner’s requests. The screening process was previously an issue because it had fundamental restrictions across the board, such as no spiral bindings, CDs, or topics dealing with weaponry. Technicalities vary from prison to prison. Kessel said the group is determined to keep up with the need for books and educational tools. “It’s very foolish to not educate people,” Pyle said. “We should do everything possible to help a person improve their condition in life.” Please see LITERACY · 2