New AFSCME report underlines problems with plan to close Stateville, relocate Logan prison
Union supports rebuilding facilities on existing sites, no closures
A new report from the union representing employees of the Illinois Department of Corrections underlines the many problems with the agency’s proposals to close Stateville Correctional Center for reconstruction for three to five years starting as soon as September, and to close and relocate Logan Correctional Center from Lincoln to Crest Hill.
The executive summary of the report follows.
AFSCME Council 31 supports building a new women’s correctional facility, but strongly opposes the relocation of Logan Correctional Center.
Likewise, AFSCME supports building a new facility at Stateville Correctional Center, but strongly opposes closing the current facility before the new one is built and opened. (IDOC has implied the current facility could be closed as soon as September—a rushed timeline that should be slowed to ensure sound answers to the many questions raised here and elsewhere.)
The current IDOC proposal would threaten layoffs with disparate harm to employees of color, worsen staffing shortages, cause upheaval in the lives of correctional employees and individuals in custody, disrupt correctional operations and destabilize other facilities.
Specific to Stateville, although IDOC has cited its consultant CGL’s report as the rationale for the closure and reconstruction proposal, department COGFA filings omit major parts of that report which contradict its plan.
THREAT OF LAYOFFS & DISPARATE IMPACT
IDOC does not identify a sufficient number of vacant positions at nearby facilities for the nearly 500 Stateville CC employees whose jobs are threatened by closure. There are just 44 vacancies at the Joliet Treatment Center (10 miles away) and 24 vacancies at Sheridan CC (30 miles). IDOC fails to disclose how many if any vacancies are available at the Northern Reception & Classification (NRC) center on Stateville’s grounds.
Closing Stateville would disproportionately harm Black, Latino, and women workers. Region 1 where Stateville is located has:
• More employees of color than all other regions combined;
• 68 percent of the department’s Black employees;
• Its largest proportion of women (41 percent); and
• Its largest Latino workforce (11 percent).
Similarly, the two correctional facilities near Logan CC (Lincoln and Decatur CCs) have just 54 vacant positions between them. The next two closest (Jacksonville and Taylorville CCs) are 60 miles away and have just 25 vacancies combined. In total that’s fewer than 80 jobs available in nearby IDOC facilities for Logan CC’s 454 employees.
The economic impact study submitted to COGFA by IDOC indicates that closing and relocating Logan CC could result in the loss of $68.5 million in economic activity in local communities.
WORSEN STAFFING SHORTAGES
Logan CC now has just 66 percent of its authorized headcount and 85 percent of its budgeted headcount.
Closing and moving Logan CC will, over the three-to-five-year anticipated timeline, exacerbate this shortage as employees seek to transfer to other facilities or state agencies in order to remain employed in the local area.
Because of the lack of viable alternatives for Stateville employees, closure will likely result in the loss of experienced IDOC employees who retire or resign rather than face significant travel or relocation.
UPHEAVAL FOR INDIVIDUALS IN CUSTODY
Because 71% of Stateville CC’s 435 individuals in custody are from the seven-county Cook-and-collars region, relocation elsewhere in the state will undoubtedly lengthen the time and distance their families and others must travel to visit.
Meanwhile, just 40% of the 1,039 women housed at Logan CC are from the Cook-and-collars region. There is no evidence for IDOC’s claim that relocating them to a new facility in Will County would improve access to families and social supports.
Because the only other facility for women—Decatur CC—is a minimum-security facility inappropriate for Logan’s population, there would be no option for offenders from central and southern Illinois to remain near these supports.
Stateville CC operates a medical facility with an ER, triage center, dialysis, imaging, lab, in-patient and long-term beds, a dental clinic and specialists including mental health treatment, physical therapy, podiatry, optometry and more. Some 60 percent of the Stateville population is on “medical hold” and requires frequent care. IDOC’s filing to COGFA is silent on how the medical needs of individuals in custody will be met if Stateville is closed.
DISRUPT CORRECTIONAL OPERATIONS
IDOC data already indicates a steady rise in staff assaults and incidents among individuals in custody, and in disciplinary transfers for dangerous or disruptive behavior—especially at the maximum- and medium-security facilities likely to receive individuals from Stateville CC if it is closed. Receiving facilities will be unable to ensure safety for their staff and current population.
Closing Stateville during reconstruction and relocating Logan CC to Will County will increase the amount of time spent transporting individuals in custody to court writs.
It will end or require the rebuilding from scratch of Stateville’s and Logan’s robust academic, career & technical education, industries, volunteer services, and treatment programs.
Closing Stateville for up to five years will eliminate its ancillary services such as administrative and security operations, visitor facilities, mail processing, its law library for individuals in custody, and other services that the NRC and the minimum-security unit on its grounds depend on (importantly, including the medical services described above).
OMISSIONS FROM IDOC FILINGS
IDOC does not accurately reflect that its consultant CGL rated much of Stateville as functional, including Cell House B, the administrative building, law library/school, vocational school and dining complex.
Further, IDOC neglects to point out that CGL found that “Stateville has significant space within its secure perimeter to accommodate new structures” and “there are several vacated buildings within the perimeter that could be demolished to provide additional options.”
The department does not mention that recent investments have addressed roofing repairs and other deferred maintenance projects recently completed or already underway, including to the commissary roof, dining complex, main gate, gym, south sallyport, electrical work, asbestos remediation, an extensive project to replace water heaters and the installation of a new fire alarm system.
While IDOC’s COGFA filing does cite a report from another consultant, HTA, it omits that the HTA report concludes that all areas of immediate concern could be repaired for just $12 million.
- Mason Born - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 1:33 pm:
I think we need to ask a question on this. Does having Offenders close to their family and other community members assist their eventual rehabilitation? If so AFSCEM really has no leg to stand on Logan should be rebuilt in the Northern part of the state. We only have 2 Womens facilities and they’re both downstate.
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 1:38 pm:
“Closing Stateville would disproportionately harm Black, Latino, and women workers.”
Thank heavens there are no racial disparities involved in the decision making process whereby some people are sentenced to live in cages for lengthy periods of time. Otherwise AFSCME might look ridiculous here.
- I Love Decatur - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 1:55 pm:
Very happy to see AFSCME come forward with some true logical points to support leaving these facilities in place and therefore supporting the employees they represent rather than just going along with the Governor they supported.
- MG85 - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 1:57 pm:
==If so AFSCEM really has no leg to stand on Logan should be rebuilt in the Northern part of the state. We only have 2 Womens facilities and they’re both downstate.==
The problem with your position is that it isn’t based in an understanding of how the department is designed.
Decatur CC houses only minimum level inmates and inmates who are pregnant.
Logan houses minimum, medium, and max inmates. And no matter of programming will ever rehab a large sect of that population because they can never be around children due to their crimes.
AFSCME isn’t saying here that being close to home help rehabilitates. It’s saying being close to home helps families see their families. And for some inmates, having privileges to see their families is rewarding enough to be on good behavior. Well behaved inmates means a safe work environment. A safe work environment is what workers want.
That said, of all that they pointed to, this is what you focused on. How about the state’s position - the men’s division has over 30 facilities to house men and, of course, given their population demands.
But the solution to the women’s division is to merge them with one of the men’s division? Most advocates argue that the reason women are incarcerated is due to a male perpetrator victimizing them into crime. And the solution is to then house them with the same men who would victimize them again?
The state’s position isn’t to build a new prison for women upstate. Their position is to force them to share space with men. The state’s position is to literally save money because both populations can share similar buildings. So this means what, exactly?
Men can go to school in the day but the women can go at night? Men at the chowhall first and then women?
Why can’t women have their own space to rehabilitate from exposure to men?
Also, Doris Turner is a downstate Senate Democrat who is also a woman of color. She already represents Decatur and its prison. Why not build a new prison in her district? Do you not think she wouldn’t be a champion of women’s rights who are incarcerated? Can only Cook County Democrats support incarcerated women?
Let’s be serious about this instead of just looking through the eye of a needle.
- Give Us Barabbas - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 1:59 pm:
Stateville is a crumbling tear-down. If you can put in temp space and build in phases, you could keep the inmates in place and keep the jobs open. But you escalate the timeline and costs astronomically. I’m sorry Lincoln put all its economic development eggs in one basket at Logan. But realistically, there is no obligation to keep George Ryan era, politically placed facilities around now if they don’t fill a real need or are sited in the wrong place. This is the curse of being a one note company town. When the cow dries up, there had better be other options. Lincoln had almost four decades to develop other businesses and industries. They didn’t. Not enough, anyway. Their situation is terrible. But it was also predictable and to some extent, preventable. We should help them as much as we can with the transition but we can’t base policy decisions on this level based on inconvenience. This is a nationwide problem and not unique to us.
- One Trick Pony - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 2:05 pm:
Mason Born - yes. It doesn’t make sense to have both women’s prisons downstate when many of those incarcerated there lived above I-80. It is a hardship for children not to see there mother’s unless they drive three hours each way. I would add that Decatur operates at less than half of its capacity (327 of 707 as of 6/30/23). While Logan is a multi-level facility mixing over 1,000 inmates that are minimum, medium, and max together. Not sure mixing levels makes a lot of sense either.
As for Stateville, it’s a dump. The marble stairs literally have ruts worn in them and the admin offices look like something out of the 1950s or 1960s. Tear it down and replace it.
- MG85 - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 2:05 pm:
==there is no obligation to keep George Ryan era, politically placed facilities around now if they don’t fill a real need==
Question for you, if this is what you really think the position of AFSCME is, then why is the Pritzker administration building a brand new DJJ facility in the very same town he’s trying to shutter a women’s facility?
I know the answer, but I would like to hear why you think the Governor believes it is best to open a new facility for youth in the center of the state as opposed to opening another one in the north?
- Free Melissa Calusinski - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 2:27 pm:
Logan has so many more problems than what has been in the press and needs to be shut down. I have visited the prison every month for 10 years now and see the high turnover rate of the employees. So using the staff as an excuse doesn’t work for me.
- Jerry - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 2:35 pm:
You can thank Governor Jim Thompson for creating the prison industry downstate…well at least most of it.
Most of our tax dollars go for schools, prisons, and football stadiums. /s
- Anonymous - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 3:15 pm:
I don’t remember where or when we decided where prisoners get located to help them or their families. If you don’t want to do the time, don’t do the crime.
- NeveroddoreveN - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 3:58 pm:
I once read on this site, “Bet on nothing”. But if you would like to be optimistic, we might end up with 1 facility. A northern women’s facility location.
- charles in charge - Tuesday, May 21, 24 @ 4:33 pm:
==I don’t remember where or when we decided where prisoners get located to help them or their families.==
Spoken like someone who doesn’t care at all about the goal of restoring incarcerated people to useful citizenship (which also reduces recidivism and improves public safety). But great zinger about “do the crime, do the time.” How did you ever think up something so clever?