By Jeremy Gorner
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — A federal judge on Friday ordered Illinois prison officials to move most of the people incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center to other prisons around the state by Sept. 30 after civil rights lawyers argued the living conditions at Stateville were too hazardous for those housed there.
The court order from U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood gives the clearest first steps yet for the Illinois Department of Corrections to begin the process of closing the sprawling facility after state officials announced earlier this year a plan to dismantle the prison and build a new one on the Stateville grounds.
The plan is part of a nearly $1 billion project that includes tearing down Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison in downstate Lincoln, and possibly rebuilding that as well on the Stateville site in Crest Hill, near Joliet.
State officials previously said they would not begin “to wind down operations” at Stateville until at least September and that plans to tear down and rebuild Stateville and Logan were expected to take three to five years. In addition to the lack of specific dates for each phase of the plan, officials have not laid out a plan for how those housed in Stateville will be handled during the transition.
“Rather than order the State or Department to complete extensive repairs needed to protect (plaintiffs) from the risk of irreparable harm posed by the deteriorated masonry at Stateville, the Court instead is requiring the Department to accomplish what it has publicly reported and recommended it would do — namely, moving forward with closing Stateville by transferring (plaintiffs) to other facilities,” Wood wrote in the order. “The Court defers to the Department to develop its own plan to transfer (plaintiffs) and implement that plan in a time and manner of the Department’s choosing, provided that the Department completes the required transfers by the Court’s deadline of September 30 , 2024.”
Wood’s decision was based on a court motion filed by civil rights lawyers representing people housed at Stateville, originally requesting that IDOC transfer or release them by Sept. 20, citing the aging prison’s “degradation and deterioration.” The motion was filed as part of 2013 litigation that’s meant to address the horrid conditions at the nearly century-old facility.
In granting the lawyers’ request for a preliminary injunction, Wood found “a probable risk of irreparable harm from falling concrete attributed to the deteriorated masonry walls, ceilings, steel beams, and window lintels at Stateville; and a lack of an adequate remedy at law.”
According to the order, IDOC does not have to transfer people housed in Stateville’s health care unit, which is a separate building that “does not exhibit the risks of falling concrete that exists in the general housing units.” The order also doesn’t prevent the department from releasing people from Stateville “who are qualified to be released.”
The preliminary injunction motion last month by civil rights lawyers from the Chicago firm Loevy + Loevy described floors, beds and sinks at Stateville “covered in bird feathers and excrement” and discolored, bad-smelling drinking water from faucets.
“Although some repairs have been made at Stateville, the facility continues to be extremely dangerous,” according to the motion. “The structural damage and disrepair to Stateville’s many compromised buildings pose an ongoing risk to (plaintiffs), as well as those employed there.”
For the lawyers and several people living in Stateville, the sordid conditions came to a head last month when 51-year-old Michael Broadway , who was locked up in Stateville, died during a June heat wave. The Will County coroner’s office has yet to release a cause of death for Broadway, who graduated last year from Northwestern University’s Prison Education program.
The proposal to dismantle Stateville and Logan and rebuild both facilities was announced by Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration in March. The budget Pritzker signed in June sets aside $900 million in capital funds for the project. Both prisons are in disrepair, and the plan would allow the state to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance costs, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections .
A spokesperson for IDOC could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, meanwhile, has expressed opposition to relocating people incarcerated at Stateville at this time. Instead, the union, which represents state prison employees, said it supports building a new prison on the Stateville grounds while keeping the current facility open during construction and continuing to make repairs as needed.
“The closure of Stateville would cause immense disruption to the state prison system, its employees, individuals in custody and their families,” AFSCME spokesperson Anders Lindall said Sunday. “We are examining all options to prevent that disruption in response to this precipitous ruling.”
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