Professional rugby player Eduardo “Coco” Oderigo started a sports rehabilitation program for men in one of Buenos Aires’ most restrictive prisons. Now, almost two decades later, the program has expanded to include women.

The single-term Republican leaves behind a complicated history. He spent five years in federal prison after being convicted of racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering and tax fraud for actions during his term as secretary of state. However, while in the governor’s mansion, Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 men on Illinois’ death row in 2003.

The prison was closed in 1963 due to crumbling infrastructure and the high costs of repairing and supplying the island facility, because everything from fuel to food had to be brought by boat.

“Housing is obviously unaffordable for everyone, but it is especially the case for people who have records,” said Ahmadou Dramé, director of the Illinois Justice Project. “Without a stable place to live, you can’t begin to triage all the other challenges that a person has to be navigating.”

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.

Uptown People’s Law Center and Equip for Equality filed a class action lawsuit 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.

In a rare rebuke of a Democrat-sponsored bill, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers voted against House Bill 3332, causing the bill to fail on a 49-51 vote. Bills require 60 votes to pass the House, and numerous Democrats voted against the bill or skipped the vote.

A bill that would reform the Prisoner Review Board passed the Illinois Senate on Thursday, aiming to protect victims and increase transparency about prisoner releases following years of controversy surrounding the board’s decisions.

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.

It’s the latest development in a showdown between the Trump administration and the judge who temporarily blocked deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration. President Donald Trump has called for the judge’s impeachment as the Republican escalates his conflict with a judiciary after a series of court setbacks over his executive actions.

Jayden Perkins, an accomplished young dancer, was stabbed to death last March while his mother, Laterria Smith, sustained “multiple life-threatening stab wounds to her neck, back, and chest while desperately trying to protect her children,” according to one of the lawsuits she filed last week.

Disability rights group Equip for Equality filed a motion Thursday for a preliminary injunction to immediately transfer the last 12 men incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center out of the facility.

Illinois’ prison population continues to shrink, with facilities now having a 26% vacancy rate, leading some of those inside and their advocates to question the state’s plan to build two new prisons.

Disability rights group Equip for Equality filed a lawsuit alleging the men still incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center are living in “unduly restrictive and isolating conditions compared to prisoners without disabilities, because of their disabilities.”

“We thought the best way to get into the conversation was to bypass all of the stereotypical conversations that people imagine having with people serving long-term sentences and really dive into questions that no one asks them,” said Melissa Lorraine, director and co-founding artistic director of Theatre Y.

El Salvador President Nayin Bukele confirmed the offer in a post on X, saying El Salvador has “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system.”