Crime & Law
Segregation, Restraints and Mace: Lawsuit Alleges Mental Illness Met With Punishment in Illinois Prisons
(txking / iStock)
After making an attempt on his life while incarcerated, Irving Madden alleges that an officer transporting him to the hospital joked that he “didn’t do it right.”
Despite multiple suicide attempts, Madden said he has been met with excessive force, has not had consistent individual or group therapy and has seen his requests for crisis care met with ridicule.
Madden’s allegations are part of a class action lawsuit filed Wednesday claiming the Illinois Department of Corrections has systematically failed to provide adequate mental health treatment to those incarcerated. Uptown People’s Law Center and Equip for Equality filed suit against IDOC Director Latoya Hughes on behalf of the nearly 13,000 people with mental illness in the state’s prisons — approximately 44% of the population.
“For decades, the thousands of people who are incarcerated in the Illinois state prison system have been denied needed mental health treatment while being subjected to conditions of confinement known to be harmful to mental illness,” the lawsuit states.
The Illinois Department of Corrections declined to comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit alleges IDOC violated class members’ Eighth Amendment rights by failing to “provide them with adequate mental health care and treatment while subjecting them to conditions of confinement known to be harmful to their mental health during their custody, which places them at substantial risk of harm.”
It also alleges IDOC violated federal disability laws, including the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, by “subjecting them to isolative confinement that disparately impacts them due to their mental illness.”
This filing builds on a 2007 class action lawsuit, Rasho v. Walker, which alleged that IDOC was not providing meaningful mental health treatment to those incarcerated, and instead harming them because of their mental health disabilities. Once judicial oversight of that case ended in 2022, “whatever semblance of mental health care that IDOC had started to implement fell off a cliff,” according to Wednesday’s filing.
Improvements in care included the 2017 opening of the Joliet Treatment Center, which was designed to provide meaningful treatment in a therapeutic setting. But after judicial oversight ended and the center’s leadership changed, the lawsuit alleges, it is “no longer a place for recovery and stabilization” with frequent lockdowns and individualized therapy “unheard of.”
Wednesday’s lawsuit alleges that IDOC knowingly punishes those incarcerated instead of providing mental health care, has limited mental health staff and fails to provide mental health treatment — all of which harm those inside.
Without treatment, the suit alleges, “mental illness is worsened, symptoms are exacerbated, suffering deepens, and any resulting behavioral acting out is met with a perpetual cycle of further harm — even more restriction, isolation, and force — not effective treatment.”
The lawsuit accuses correctional staff of punishing those with mental illness — and says Hughes is aware of it. That harm includes the use of force like pepper spray and mace-ball guns in isolated and restrictive settings. In 2025, IDOC used chemical agents an average of 37 times per month when responding to self-harm, according to the filing.
One plaintiff incarcerated at Lawrence Correctional Center alleges he recently self-harmed in a shower and an officer found him sitting and bleeding on the floor. An officer responded by macing him repeatedly.
The lawsuit further alleges isolation and restraint are used as punishment for mental illness. Those with mental illness are often placed in isolation under the guise of “crisis watch” for prolonged periods of time. Those crisis units, the lawsuit states, are not therapeutic — instead they’re loud, “disturbingly dirty” and barren with no amenities other than a toilet with an attached sink and a steel bed with a thin mat. The lawsuit alleges people are denied all clothing and property, given only a “smock” that is often stained with the blood, urine or feces of others.
Some individuals on crisis watch are placed in four-point restraints — “one of the most restrictive and dangerous interventions utilized,” the lawsuit alleges. One plaintiff said he was held in four-point restraints for two and a half days in February.
“On crisis watch, Plaintiffs are stripped of their humanity,” the lawsuit states.
When individuals do ask for help, they’re advised to ask for a “crisis team,” according to the lawsuit. But staff refused to provide a crisis intervention response unless and until the incarcerated person escalates to self-harm, the lawsuit alleges. Some individuals in crisis have set their cells and bodies on fire to bring attention to their needs, it continues. Multiple plaintiffs across Illinois prisons allege asking staff for help only to be told to “go ahead and harm themselves.”
If a crisis team does respond, the lawsuit alleges, “it is little more than a formulaic and limited set of questions aimed at filling out paperwork and determining whether to place them in restraints or on ‘crisis watch.’”
IDOC has chosen not to provide a functioning mental health treatment system, despite knowing it’s required, the lawsuit alleges. Part of the issue is a lack of staff, the lawsuit said: Just 67 full-time mental health positions out of 175 budget positions were filled as of December 2024. According to the lawsuit, requests go unanswered, individuals are told they’re on a waitlist or there is no staff to provide care. One plaintiff made six requests in the last year to see a mental health professional and never got a response.
Another plaintiff alleges that he has not received individual therapy since approximately 2020 despite a requirement for care to treat the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The care that is provided uses a “one-size-fits-all approach” that leads to ineffective care, the lawsuit alleges. For example, an individual struggling with grief or symptoms of depression will allegedly have the same treatment plan as people with completely different needs. Plus, many individuals do not know their diagnosis or treatment plan.
On top of these mental-health specific issues, Illinois prisons are facing a massive increase in lockdowns, which are “effectively solitary confinement” that disproportionately harms those with mental illness, the lawsuit states. Administrative lockdowns, often linked to insufficient staffing levels, increased nearly 650% from 2019 to 2024, according to a report from the John Howard Association, a prison watchdog group.
Because of these lockdowns, what once were conditions of restrictive housing have now become the standards of many IDOC facilities, the lawsuit alleges.
Even those nearing release from IDOC prisons are at a “distinct disadvantage,” the suit alleges: Mental health and disability needs are not considered in discharge care, and sufficient help with continuing psychiatric medications is not provided upon release.
Class members are requesting the court to direct IDOC to provide constitutionally adequate mental health treatment and to avoid discrimination on the basis of mental health disability.
Contact Blair Paddock: @blairpaddock | [email protected]
