We are circulating reports from incarcerated community members asking for outside support to stop ongoing human rights violations at FCI Thomson, a federal prison northwest of Chicago. After yet another manufactured “17 mailroom guards hospitalized” stunt, people living there have been continuously locked down and deprived access to mail/phone communications, visits, outside rec, law library, medical care, showers, laundry, adequate food, and have been subject to excessive shakedowns and frivolous confiscations of personal property. Formerly home of the “Special Management Unit”, a supermax unit that closed after investigations revealed rampant abuse and torture, it has since been converted into a Low Security prison; but lockdowns and human rights violations continue and people inside are asking for outside support.
AFGE 4070 “union” boss Jon Zumkehr has been spreading disinformation through these “blue flu” fake overdoses at least six times over the past few years to an effort to deprive the rights of people incarcerated at FCI Thomson and promote federal legislation which would ban physical mail in favor of third party digitization corporations. The proposed law H.R. 1046 “Marc Fischer Memorial Interdiction of Fentanyl in Postal Mail at Federal Prisons Act” was named after the mailroom guard who supposedly died from contraband-infused mail, but according to the autopsy and the government’s own filings, Marc Fischer “died of natural causes from a heart attack”. There is no evidence to support any of the alleged mailroom overdoses anywhere or that banning physical mail or increased lockdowns would stop the availability of drugs behind bars, yet the nationwide censorship trend continues to parrot these lies, including the most recent push within the Illinois Department of Corrections.
🚨 Below is the letter that people incarcerated at FCI Thomson are asking people to circulate. Please contact the BOP to demand an end to the lockdowns and human rights violations!
👉 FCI THOMSON: Email: TOM-ExecAssistant-S@bop.gov Phone: 815-259-1000
👉 BOP North Central Regional Office: NCR-ExecAssistant-S@bop.gov Phone: 913-621-3939
Formal Complaint Regarding Human Rights Violations and Repeated lockdowns at FCI Thomson
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing to bring to your attention serious and ongoing issues at FCI Thomson that have been affecting both the inmates and their families. As a family member of someone housed at FCI Thomson, I am deeply concerned about the repeated and extended lockdowns that have occurred over the past 18 months.
Since late 2023, inmates at FCI Thomson have endured seven extended lockdowns, including three in 2025 alone. These lockdowns have lasted between 11 to 31 days and have resulted in:
- Denial of food and medical care: Meals are often inadequate or undelivered, leaving inmates without proper nutrition. Medical care is frequently delayed or denied during lockdowns.
- Poor sanitation and hygiene: During lockdowns, inmates are typically allowed to shower only once every 72 hours, and at times have gone 4 or 5 days without being let out to shower. They have no chance to clean their cells, as cleaning supplies are never distributed. Furthermore, laundry refuses to wash bags or inmate-purchased clothes during lockdowns, and sheet/blanket exchanges are rarely, if ever, done. All of this is degrading and unsanitary.
- Lack of communication: Inmates have no access to phone calls, email, or visitation during lockdowns. Personal letters are often being rejected and returned with false claims of prohibited content, or held for months at a time. This is an ongoing issue at FCI Thomson, even when the institution is not locked down.
- No access to law library: Inmates are deprived of all access to legal materials during lockdowns, which harms those who are actively working on their cases They cannot even purchase stamps or envelopes to engage in legal correspondence.
If they don’t have these materials in their lockers at the start of a lockdown, they are simply out of luck, and risk missing their filing deadlines.- Mental health concerns: Prolonged isolation has led to a sharp decline in mental health for both inmates and their families. While even inmates in the SHU for disciplinary infractions are given the opportunity to leave their cells for one hour a day under standard Bureau policy, those who are locked down get no such privileges. They are literally being punished more severely than they would be if they were in the SHU at a different institution.
Repeatedly, the facility has claimed that lockdowns are necessary due to staffing issues and security concerns. However, the pattern of lockdowns suggests that these are not spontaneous reactions but rather pre-planned events. For example, before the most recent lockdown, inmate kitchen workers reported that facility staff were preparing sandwiches, a known indicator that a lockdown was coming. At all times, when not locked down, the facility continues to operate under the protocols of a high security prison, mates, despite the fact that FCI Thomson now houses low security inmates.
We have raised these issues with the facility itself, the BOP, and our state’s congressional delegation, including Senator Dick Durbin and Senator Tammy Duckworth, but have received no meaningful response or corrective action. More than 300 emails have been sent to the BOP and the DOJ since May 2024, yet the pattern of abuse and neglect at FCI Thomson continues.
Additionally, our advocacy efforts have gained attention from several media outlets, and we recently released a public statement highlighting these issues. We are hoping to resolve these problems internally before they escalate further in the public eye.
We are formally requesting that the North Central Regional Office take the following immediate actions:
- Conduct a full investigation into the pattern of lockdowns at FCI Thomson, including the facility’s justification for them and their impact on mental health, physical health, and all of the issues mentioned previously.
- Investigate the ongoing issue of denied FSA credits and take corrective action to ensure inmates are receiving the programming and credits they are entitled to by law.
- Require the facility to establish a clear and transparent policy on communication during lockdowns, including access to phone calls, email, and legal correspondence.
- Address the ongoing issues of food quality, medical care, and laundry services during lockdowns.
- Provide a formal written response with findings and proposed solutions within 21 calendar days from the date of this letter.
- Contemplate a change of executive or other staff at the facility, given the current leadership’s apparent inability to maintain normal operations.
Please be advised that failure to address these issues will leave us with no choice but to escalate the matter to the Department of Justice, the Office of the Inspector General, and additional media outlets.
Thank you for your time and attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your prompt response.
Sincerely,