Local and state Republican leaders criticized the plan for potential harm to Lincoln and Logan County after the area has seen economic hardship in recent years.

Albums recorded in Midwest jails and prisons that will be spun at the gallery Walls Turned Sideways on June 12. After the live listening event, a group discussion will allow audience members to debrief the music.

The switch to digitized mail for incarcerated people has had little impact on the drug exposures the policy sought to stop, according to new data from the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Illinois lawmakers are fed up with the state Department of Corrections after another audit found it has ignored state spending rules and failed to fix many mistakes that have languished for years.

Under two different Illinois laws, people charged with sex offenses are subject to indefinite detention. Some people who’ve only been charged with a crime — never convicted or sentenced — can spend the rest of their lives at a correctional center.

Over the past five years, 59 petitions have been filed with the Illinois Department of Corrections from those incarcerated in Illinois state prisons requesting transfers all over the world. Only two people have been approved, and two more are pending.

More than 100 people gathered in Sheridan’s gymnasium, about 70 miles southwest of Chicago. Students of the Northwestern Prison Education Program, which offers undergraduate degrees to men incarcerated at Sheridan, their families and professors had the opportunity to speak with Mayor Brandon Johnson.

“Just because we are going through something with our criminal past does not have anything to do with our reproductive rights,” said Amy Hicks, who was previously incarcerated at Logan Correctional Center and is now suing the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Illinois will begin a process to automatically seal criminal records for millions of adults in the state, after Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Clean Slate Act on Friday.

Joseph Mapp heads Chicago’s Office of Reentry. The office is tasked with investing in formerly incarcerated people and providing access to services — including housing, mental health support and job training.

Since 2013, the prison abolition collective has processed mail from largely LGBTQ people incarcerated in Illinois. How those materials are delivered has recently changed. 

In March 2024, Gov. JB Pritzker announced the closure and rebuild of both Stateville and Logan correctional centers, allocating $900 million for the projects. The decision came after a state-commissioned report found that the two prisons accumulated more than $402 million in deferred maintenance costs.

More than 2 million people in Illinois are eligible to have their records sealed but haven’t acted on what is currently a cumbersome, lengthy process.

Beginning immediately, non-privileged mail will be opened and inspected for contraband, scanned in color, then be uploaded to an individual’s tablet, the department announced Monday. Nearly all incarcerated people now have tablets, according to the department.

Seven current and formerly incarcerated women filed federal lawsuits over the last week alleging sexual assault, harassment and institutional retaliation at Illinois’ primary women’s prison, Logan Correctional Center.

The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules objected to the Illinois Department of Corrections’ emergency rule allowing facilities to electronically scan mail. The objection does not stop the department’s emergency rule, which paves the way for IDOC facilities to transition to scanning incarcerated peoples’ mail, instead of giving them physical mail.