(The Center Square) – With years of safety complaints and incidents within the Illinois Department of Corrections, especially stemming from the Joliet Treatment Center, Illinois lawmakers Tuesday sought answers for how the department intends to improve conditions for inmates.
More than 70 fires have been started over the last three years at the center – a low-population facility IDOC describes as a prison for “convicted adult male felons with severe mental illness.”
Among the fires were eight cases of prisoners intentionally setting themselves on fire, leading to the death of two inmates according to state records.
The Joliet facility costs taxpayers at least $336,699 per inmate each year, according to the state’s 2025 budget, and lawmakers questioned how the department could improve operations.
IDOC Acting Director Latoya Hughes and other top IDOC officials faced a joint committee. She said the department is working to improve conditions in Joliet by hiring a new employee for fire safety and a new chief of mental health.
“Correctional facilities were never designed to serve as long-term behavioral health centers. Even with dedicated staff and resources,” Hughes said. ”The safety and well-being of those in our care as well as our staff and visitors remains our top priority and we take these concerns very seriously.”
Sheena McClain, a Joliet Treatment Center officer and AFSCME local president, told lawmakers IDOC’s efforts haven’t been enough, and employees and inmates are still left in unsafe conditions.
“Compounding the problems, the department frequently gives only surface level treatment to long-standing operational problems,” McClain said.
Rep. Gregg Johnson, D-East Moline, is a former IDOC employee and said his engagement as a lawmaker have resulted in him receiving incorrect or non-answers to his questions, such as the denial and later confirmation of the sexual assault of an employee.
“It’s a culture of dishonesty that I have seen for decades now. But I want to know what we can do to fix this because when legislators call and they want to know what’s going on with the facilities, I think they absolutely are entitled to an honest straight answer,” Johnson said.
Other lawmakers, such as Rep. Kelly Cassidy, the Democrat chair of the Restorative Justice and Public Safety Committee, were critical of the department’s operations and answers.
“I asked you [Hughes] to make it make sense. You did not. We have a state of the art facility that is half empty and we have people all over the state who are harming themselves for lack of access to care. So, I appreciate all of those words, but it doesn’t make sense to me,” Cassidy said.
While IDOC officials said they have robust staffing, McClain said staffing hasn’t been adequate since before the start of the decade.
McClain said some of the solutions to improve safety could include the installation of sprinklers at the site – which was built without them in 2017 – and increasing the employment of mental health-specific staff.
Lawmakers sought another solution after the hearing, a bipartisan bill to create a new independent ombudsman for the department.
The new role would investigate complaints about facility operations, conditions and inmate treatment, while also conducting regular facility visits to detail conditions, which would be released in public reports.
Rep. Kevin Olickal, D-Chicago, said the bill he is sponsoring with another Democrat and a Republican representative is clearly needed.
“These conditions put both incarcerated individuals and correctional staff at risk. And yet under our current system, we are relying on IDOC to investigate complaints about IDOC. We are asking the department to hold itself accountable,” Olickal said.
The ombudsman would be required to have not served within IDOC or the Department of Juvenile Justice or have contracted for the agencies to ensure independence.
