Ken Sawyer

 Stateville

Built in the 1920s to house 1500 persons, the Stateville Correctional Center facility now contains three distinct imprisoned populations: a maximum security prison with a current population of 1130 persons; a minimum security unit of 127 persons deployed in facility maintenance tasks; and the current census of 1250 persons at the Northern Reception and Classification Center, the intake facility for the entire statewide prison system. All inmates in the Illinois prison system have spent at least a few days at Stateville before transfer to other prison facilities. The Northern Reception and Classification Center serves as a liminal threshold – yet another “Door of No Return,” but this for entry. The current figures reach approximately 2460 persons incarcerated at Stateville.[2] This prison, sometimes confused with the penitentiary at Joliet [closed in 2002 but still available for tours] is its own forms of carceral hell, well known for its constructed interior (readers of Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment will recognize the “Panopticon” — the roundhouse proposed by Jeremy Bentham and adapted/built throughout the Old World and the New. Along with Stateville a panopticon plan was adapted for the Rahway prison in Rahway, New Jersey. There is also a large panopticon complex on Isla de la Juventud, Cuba).[3] This dangerously derelict portion of Stateville (F-House) was reopened for COVID-19 patients:

Stateville was the site of a malaria study during the Second World War. Like its Tuskegee cousin, this study has been cited as a model of mistreatment of participants.[4] Stateville was the place of State of Illinois executions down until the moratorium on executions in 1999, followed by the commutation of 160 death sentences by then Governor George Ryan in 2003.[5] Stateville is a famous place filled with the infamous, with a seemingly limitless catalog of sorrows, but it is also a center of vitality, agency, and hope for many residents. Because of the insightful work of those who, like McCormick Seminary colleague Stephanie Crumpton, rightly begin with an acknowledgement of deep, intergenerational, and continuing trauma in the lives of the infamous in jails and in prisons, many hope the days of places like Stateville are numbered. 

Until that day, Stateville residents continue to cope with sustained legacy systems of trauma and compensatory mistreatment within the contemporary carceral state. The abysmally inadequate healthcare usually requires petitionary grievances just to obtain minimal (under)treatment.[6]  Systemic negligence in provision of basic hygiene and personal needs has rendered Stateville an abiding COVID hotspot.[7] Long-term lockdowns further imperil health by an enforced sedentary life. Pay scales for corrections officers include incentives to maintain Stateville’s maximum security status. To this is added the systemic neglect of juridical remedies in the absence of a parole system for the State of Illinois, leading to an aged and unwell prison population.[8] Some continue to pursue absurdly granular reviews of court case events of 25-35 years ago for petitions of appeal, while others run the continuous process of petitioning for clemency from the Governor.

Jail and Prison are two profoundly different domains, and those who would confuse them will be confounded in efforts of amelioration, reform, or abolition. These initial notes indicate significant worlds of difference:

Jails: County run, pre-trial detainees, younger with fewer system years, anticipating and negotiating a judicial system decision or deal, shorter term, comparatively open system

Prisons: State run, post-conviction prisoner, older with more system years, appealing a judicial decision, negotiating a comparatively closed system, longer term

Recent years have seen a proliferation in educational programing options for Stateville residents, and residents remark on the improvement on the not-so-distant-past. In addition to older programs in barbering and soap making, now a full program in adult basic education and GED flourishes, and throughout the state now some men even petition to come to Stateville in order to participate in classes offered through Northwestern University (partnering with Oakton Community College), North Park University, Northeastern Illinois University, and DePaul University, among others.[9] Readers familiar with the short-lived Stateville Debate Team (2016-2018) will know the caliber of students in classes: selectively admitted, well-trained and advised, supported by North Park in and out of the classroom.[10]

[1] See James Jacobs, Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978, e-book, 2015). See also Nathan Kantrowitz, Close Control: Managing a Maximum Security Prison (New York Harrow and Heston, 2012). For Warden J.E. Ragen’s perspective, see J.E. Ragen and C. Finston, Inside the World’s Toughest Prison (Springfield, Ill.: C.C.Thomas, 1962).

[2] See IDOC factsheet at: https://www2.illinois.gov/idoc/facilities/Pages/statevillecorrectionalcenter.aspx

[3] See “Bentham’s Panopticon,” at: https://criminologyweb.com/jeremy-bentham-panopticon/. See also John M. Lamb, “The Architecture of Punishment: Jeremy Bentham, Michael Foucalt [sic] and the Construction of Stateville Penitentiary Illinois,” available at: http://www.lewisu.edu/imcanal/JohnLamb/section_40.pdf.

[4] See Nathaniel Comfort, “The Prisoner as Model Organism: Malaria Research at Stateville Penitentiary” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 40, no. 3 (September 2009), 190-203.

[5] The history of the death penalty varies from state to state, though all share traits of capriciousness and opportunism. After the federal vacating of the death penalty, it was reintroduced in many states. Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1976, and executed 12 persons between that year and 1999, when Gov. George H. Ryan, Sr. imposed a moratorium on executions, then commuted 160 death row inmates to life sentences, and pardoned several prisoners in 2003. Governor Patrick Quinn signed legislation repealing the Illinois death penalty in late spring of 2011, while Gov. Rouner sought reinstatement. See George H. Ryan, Sr., with Maurice Possley, Until I Could Be Sure: How I Stopped the Death Penalty in Illinois (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020).

[6] See https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/prisons-and-jails/2020/the-way-prisoners-flag-guard-abuse-inadequate-health-care-and-unsanitary-conditions-is-broken/

[7] https://theappeal.org/illinois-stateville-prison-conditions-coronavirus-covid-19/

[8] See https://paroleillinois.org/2020/10/09/senate-bill-3233-fact-sheet/

[9] https://sites.northwestern.edu/npep/stateville-students/; For Depaul’s Inside Out program, see: https://resources.depaul.edu/steans-center-community-based-service-learning/for-students/community-service-studies/Pages/Inside-Out-Prison-Exchange.aspx; for Northeastern University College Without Walls, and the newsletter Stateville Speaks: see https://www.neiu.edu/sites/neiu.edu/files/documents/2020/10/12/2020_spring%20%281%29.pdf

[10] see https://www.injusticewatch.org/news/2018/illinois-prisoners-debate-parole-state-halts-class/