Crime & Law

12 Years Later, Lawsuit That Called Attention to Conditions at Now-Closed Stateville Prison Settled

After 12 years, the class action lawsuit over living conditions at Stateville Correctional Center that helped bring the prison to a close was settled Thursday.

The settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood, vacated Stateville’s general housing unit in September, transferring men to other facilities across the state.

“What was considered an impossible outcome at the start of this litigation—the closure of Stateville—became a reality,” filings state.

Representatives for the Illinois Department of Corrections declined to comment.

The lawsuit was originally filed by Lester Dobbey in 2013 while he was incarcerated at Stateville. He alleged unconstitutional conditions at the prison: physical deterioration and structural unsafety of buildings, unsafe drinking water, vermin, poor ventilation and exposure to excessive heat and cold.

Over a decade later, a motion was filed last summer to transfer more than 420 men in the general housing unit out of the facility. They were transferred in the fall after Wood ordered that they were to be moved due to probable risk of irreparable harm from falling concrete attributed to deteriorated masonry walls, ceilings, steel beams and window lintels at the prison.

Last year’s order did not include 21 men who were left in the health care unit at the prison. During their months inside the unit, men said they were held in “third-world” conditions in segregation without access to recreational activities, the law library, education programs or time in the chapel.

Disability rights group Equip for Equality filed a lawsuit on behalf of those men. They were transferred to other facilities in March, bringing Stateville to an official close.

“It’s a relief knowing that officially Stateville is now closed,” James Soto, an exoneree and past class action member once incarcerated at the prison, said Thursday.

The lawsuits pushed the department to speed up the state’s plan to close Stateville, which Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced last March. It’s part of the $900 million pitch from Pritzker to close and rebuild both Stateville and the women’s prison Logan Correctional Center. Proposals call for Logan to stay open until the new women’s facility is built.

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.” That report found about $286 million in deferred maintenance required at the facility at the time.

Months before the closure, a man incarcerated at the facility, Michael Broadway, died. Heat stress was a “significant contributing condition,” according to an autopsy report. In his housing unit, not a single window was open and everything for ventilation purposes in the cell area was closed or locked, according to men who were housed near him. The days before his death were some of the hottest that June.

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 of those facilities will stay open throughout the construction.

As of late March, there were still some staff working at Stateville due to space limitations, according to Alyssa Williams, assistant director for IDOC. 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.

In February, a contract was awarded to a vendor to demolish buildings at Stateville.

Note: Loevy and Loevy has done legal work for WTTW News.

Contact Blair Paddock: @blairpaddock | [email protected]

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