Who We Are

The Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML) was founded in 1985 to fight against the brutality of the lockdown at Marion Federal Penitentiary. The lockdown which began in October 1983 transformed the whole prison into a ``control unit'' where the prisoners are kept in tiny cells for 22-23 hours per day and are under total physical control. Since then control unit prisons (often referred to as ``supermax'' prisons) modelled on Marion have proliferated throughout the state prison systems. Control unit conditions violate prisoners' human rights and they serve to isolate and punish those prisoners who challenge the prison system in any way. These prisoners are not the violent prisoners -- violent prisoners are welcomed and encouraged by the prison authorities just as gang violence on the streets of LA is nurtured by the LAPD -- but the prisoners who write too many lawsuits, who have strong political views, and in particular those who organise other prisoners in protests and work stoppages. The history of Marion and an analysis of the function of control units are contained in our article Control Unit Prisons in the United States.

We are an anti-racist group and are committed to exposing the racist nature of imprisonment. This racism can be expressed in many different ways: for example, a Black person is more than eight times more likely to go to prison than a white person in the US. The facts are given and analysed in our article The Continuing Crime of Black Imprisonment and though they are an outrage, are not widely known within the progressive community. CEML works to create an awareness amongst progressive people of prisons as an attack on people of color.

Our work involves collecting and disseminating information, organising letter campaigns and such like, but we believe in direct visible action and have organised, with other groups such as the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, numerous demonstrations in Chicago, Marion and around the country. We hope to include a more detailed history of CEML in these pages in the future. For more information on CEML's work and to find out how you can become involved, please contact us at

Committee to End the Marion Lockdown
P.O. Box 578172
Chicago, IL 60657-8172
(312) 235-0070

or at the email addresses at the end of our Homepage

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