Crime & Law

Petition Filed Seeking to Transfer the Last 12 Men Out of the Aging Stateville Prison

Disability rights group Equip for Equality filed a motion Thursday for a preliminary injunction to immediately transfer the last men incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center out of the facility.

The move is part of a lawsuit filed last month over 21 men who were housed at the derelict facility, alleging they were being kept in solitary conditions without programming.

The filing states there are still a dozen men left in the facility’s medical unit, “condemning them to isolation and neglect.” IDOC’s inaction, it states, is inflicting irreparable harm.

“These men are deteriorating daily— suffering worsening medical conditions, mental anguish, and, for some, suicidal despair,” the filing states. “Every additional day they remain in these conditions deepens their suffering and compounds the violation of their rights.”

The Illinois Department of Corrections declined to comment due to pending litigation.

“We are not hospice. We simply have kidney failure. This should be illegal,” William Jenkins wrote to WTTW News last month. He is still incarcerated at Stateville.

These 12 men are the last incarcerated at Stateville, as the state transferred most of the population to other prisons in its effort to close and rebuild the aging facility. The state is also planning to close and rebuild Logan Correctional Center, which houses women. The two rebuilds could take about five years and the state allocated $900 million for the project in the 2025 budget.

In August, the state found itself in a similar situation. Chicago civil rights firm Loevy and Loevy filed a motion for preliminary injunction seeking to immediately transfer over 420 incarcerated people out of Stateville. The men inside were at “risk of dire injury due to the structural vulnerabilities, degradation and deterioration of those buildings,” said Heather Lewis Donnell, a partner at Loevy and Loevy.

Shortly after, federal judge Andrea Wood ordered that most men at Stateville must be transferred as the court found a probable risk of irreparable harm from falling concrete attributed to the deteriorated masonry walls, ceilings, steel beams and window lintels at Stateville. Most men were transferred out by the end of September.

However, the health care unit was excluded from the order because it “does not exhibit the risks of falling concrete that exists in the general housing units.”

Since then, men who were told they’d be housed in that unit for two to four months to receive medical care have been there for about five months.

Some men wrote to WTTW News that they’re being “kept in cells under segregation conditions with no recreational activities” and outside time “consisting of simply going outside being yard statues or ornaments” without weights or basketball courts. They don’t have a law library, educational programs or time in the chapel. And they’re getting the same food for lunch and dinner up to three days in a row, with some meals not medically prescribed.

Equip for Equality filed the original lawsuit against Latoya Hughes, acting director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, on Feb. 13. They alleged she violated the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act by holding the men inside in “unduly restrictive and isolating conditions compared to prisoners without disabilities, because of their disabilities.” The lawsuit also alleges she deprived the men inside of programs otherwise available because of their disabilities.

The lawsuit alleges one man died since these men were left in the facility after Stateville was otherwise closed. Witnesses said they saw staff disregard his urgent medical needs for the hours leading to his death, according to the lawsuit. A week later, two individuals heard staff laughing about the man’s absence, joking that he was “on a permanent writ,” the lawsuit continues.

Contact Blair Paddock: @blairpaddock | [email protected]

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