Crime & Law
Final Men Transferred Out of Stateville Prison as Facility’s 100-Year History Comes to a Close
Stateville Correctional Center is pictured in a file photo. (Andrew Campbell / Capitol News Illinois)
The last men incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center have been transferred out of the aging facility as of Monday, bringing the 100-year-old prison to a close, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.
In letters to WTTW News, men said they were told they’d be in the facility’s medical unit for two to four months after most of the prison’s population was transferred out in September. Instead, they were inside for six months held in “third-world conditions,” as one man described: segregation with no access to recreational activities, the law library, educational programs or time in the chapel.
Disability rights group Equip for Equality filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to immediately transfer the men out of the facility a little over a week ago.
The move was part of the organization’s lawsuit against Latoya Hughes, acting director of the Illinois Department of Corrections. Equip for Equality alleged that Hughes violated the Americans with Disabilities and 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.
“It’s hard to express too much joy over this outcome when we saw the really significant impact of those poor conditions and the isolation that these men were in for the last six months,” said Amanda Antholt, a managing attorney at Equip for Equality.
It’s the second recent lawsuit to get men out of what are described as decrepit conditions: Chicago civil rights firm Loevy and Loevy successfully filed a motion seeking to transfer more than 420 incarcerated men out of Stateville. Most men were transferred out in September, leaving behind those in the medical unit because it did “not exhibit the risks of falling concrete that exists in the general housing units.”
“The fact that the department and the governor wanted to close this facility, but was willing to leave behind people with disabilities, thinking they would be unseen and unheard there — it’s just unacceptable,” Antholt said.
It’s the end of the facility’s 100-year-old run, after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced last March that the facility, and Logan Correctional Center, were to be closed and rebuilt. The state allocated $900 million for the rebuild of the two prisons in the 2025 budget.
The decision to close and rebuild Stateville came after Illinois commissioned a report that found the prison is “not suitable for any 21st century correctional center.” The property also houses the Northern Reception and Classification Center, which is the major adult male intake and processing unit for the entire state, as well as a minimum security unit. Both will stay open throughout the construction.
There is still some staff working at Stateville due to space limitations, according to Alyssa Williams, acting assistant director for IDOC. For records, some administrative staff will stay in the administrative building until there’s other space or until the rebuild is complete, she added.
The vast majority of staff once working at Stateville were transferred to the Northern Reception Center, Williams said.
Note: Loevy and Loevy has done legal work for WTTW News.
