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.

A pair of Illinois bills seeks to clarify language around sentencing credits, aiming to ensure that after program completion, judges can issue sentence credit, whether it was completed in a state prison or a county jail.

“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.

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.

In an October interview with a downstate radio station, state Sen. Terri Bryant said she gave a list of undocumented individuals currently being held in Illinois state prisons to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

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.

The change comes after debate over the safety of physical mail. IDOC states that these emergency rules are intended to prevent the smuggling of contraband and hazardous substances into correctional facilities.

Lockdowns can be indistinguishable from solitary confinement-like conditions, with those incarcerated given little yard time and limited access to educational programming and commissary.

Many who’ve been through restrictive housing attest to extreme isolation and confinement in small, dark, windowless cells. Phone and tablet use can be restricted. Yard or outside time is limited.

Every year, incarcerated people in Illinois file post-conviction petitions, compiling evidence of police misconduct, violations of constitutional rights or claims of actual innocence. It’s a vital tool for those alleging injustice to get a new trial or be resentenced.