* Bailey campaign press release…
A drug-related incident over the weekend at the Pinckneyville Correction Center is yet another example of the total breakdown happening under Governor JB Pritzker’s watch, according to the Darren Bailey/Aaron Del Mar campaign.
Six inmates reportedly overdosed after being exposed to illegal drugs inside the prison on Saturday. How the drugs got inside — and why basic security continues to fail — remains unanswered by the Pritzker Administration.
The Bailey/Del Mar campaign for Governor issued the following statement Monday from Aaron Del Mar:
“Let’s be clear: this is what happens when a governor is more focused on political games than public safety. Under JB Pritzker, the Department of Corrections has become a leadership vacuum. Drugs making their way into a state prison is not an accident – it’s a symptom of an administration that has lost control.
For years, Pritzker has pushed policies that weaken discipline, embolden offenders, and demoralize the men and women who actually keep our prisons running. When you treat corrections like a social experiment instead of a serious responsibility, this is the result. Officers are put at risk, inmates are put at risk, and taxpayers are left wondering who is actually in charge.
When Darren Bailey and I take office, that changes on day one. We will restore order, support correctional officers, and make sure prisons operate like prisons – not playgrounds. And let me be perfectly clear: if a director under a Bailey Administration allowed drugs to infiltrate a facility, they’d be removed immediately. That’s accountability. That’s leadership. And it’s something Illinois hasn’t seen from JB Pritzker.”
* I asked IDOC for a response…
On Saturday, November 15, 2025, a staff member observed an individual in custody exhibiting seizure-like symptoms near the shower in A-Wing. A correctional officer initiated a medical emergency code, and additional staff responded to the location. A sergeant then observed five other individuals in custody on the bottom deck of the housing unit on the ground, also experiencing seizure-like symptoms and vomiting.
Staff secured the housing unit and escorted all six individuals to Pinckneyville’s Health Care Unit for evaluation. They were subsequently transferred to restrictive housing while the incident remains under investigation. Staff conducted a search of all property belonging to the affected individuals and found no hazardous or suspicious materials. No staff reported symptoms. The investigation is ongoing.
* Meanwhile…
Criminal justice advocates are encouraging Illinois residents to join their campaign and “say no” to mail scanning in state prisons. Mail scanning is a practice implemented at prisons across the U.S. in recent years, allowing prison officials to use programs to scan original physical mail intended for incarcerated people, convert it into digital copies, and transfer them to individual tablets, shared kiosks or print them on paper.
The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) started using mail scanning at all prisons in September. However, this doesn’t include legal mail, such as correspondence from an attorney. The original copy under IDOC’s policy is retained for at least six months. […]
The law requires IDOC to collect and publish data on contraband annually. This move to mail scanning was made despite relevant data showing that it would not address issues with contraband, according to criminal justice advocates. The law, they say, restricts a form of connection between incarcerated people and their loved ones, doesn’t make prisons safer and undermines rehabilitation. […]
“In recent years, smuggling drugs into prison through the mail has become frighteningly common among individuals in custody, and as a result, drug exposures and hospitalizations of prison staff have gone through the roof,” according to AFSCME Council 31, the union that represents most correctional workers in Illinois, said in a news release on Nov. 17.
So, if those Pinckneyville prisoners didn’t obtain whatever caused that reaction through the mail, now what?
- GoneFishing - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 2:08 pm:
I am probably way off on remembering this correctly but I thought hear somewhere IDOC staff was smuggling in the drugs. Could be way off on that. This is one of these stories that gets tons of airtime “downstate” but around Chicago and the suburbs isn’t reported on. Unfortunately we just warehouse inmates with no ideas on how to rehab them and it’s just jobs creation for the rest of the state.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 2:11 pm:
===IDOC staff was smuggling in the drugs===
If it ain’t the mail, it’s the visitors and/or the guards/staff/contractors
- charles in charge - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 2:16 pm:
==If it ain’t the mail, it’s the visitors and/or the guards/staff/contractors==
Just gonna put this out there:
https://www.wcsjnews.com/news/local/pontiac-correctional-officer-convicted-of-official-misconduct-bringing-meth-inside-prison/article_4854cb9d-0c72-4c03-8673-6b42fe68d537.html
- charles in charge - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 2:18 pm:
Also:
https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2024/08/17/cook-county-corrections-deputy-facing-smuggling-charges-drug-soaked-paper-mdmb-butinaca-crime-courts
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 2:28 pm:
“When you treat corrections like a social experiment instead of a serious responsibility”
Putting all the prisons and mental hospitals way out in the sticks where nobody with college degrees live is quite obviously a ’social experiment’ in itself. Believe it or not downstate residents didn’t bootstrap their way to all these unionized government jobs with pensions and healthcare benefits that don’t exist anywhere in the private sector in those places.
- Give Us Barabbas - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 2:29 pm:
“Supporting the guards”… The guards are the ones bringing in the contraband, and/or the other staff are. Always has been. Nobody is letting a prisoner go off-campus to shop for drugs and then bring them back in. It’s always been the staff letting this stuff come in, for money, for favors, or under threats to family from people on the outside. There’s been talk of gangs recruiting “clean” members and sending them into the DOC workforce to work as guards and be their own inside man. I can totally believe this is possible, based on the relatively loose hiring standards and oversight of DOC. If you try to tighten-up the standards, the Corrections union and Police “unions” push back. “Supporting the officers” as Bailey says, is a dog whistle telling them they can keep on betraying their oaths and endangering their fellow officers, and the inmates will get punished for it instead.
What I think happened at Pinkneyville was some inmates playing at being Heisenberg and concocting their own intoxicants, or, one of them got some bad contraband substance and they all shared it and overdosed or poisoned themselves, out of ignorance of the risks and desperation to get high.
The paper-scanning thing hasn’t shown effectiveness. While some incidents of drug-infused paper have been demonstrated, it’s not being found in a quantity consistent with the level of drug abuse being found inside the prisons. Some of the staff themselves are dirty. And none of their brother officers will stop it. You will have to impose another level of scrutiny and searching on the staff, with much more severe consequences, to make an impact.
- fs - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 2:43 pm:
Contraband, in whatever form, being smuggled into a prison has been happening for about as long as prisons have existed.
Next thing you know, he’ll be shocked that gambling is occurring in Illinois
- Been There - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 3:00 pm:
This could have also come in before they started scanning for less than 2 months. It could have very easily have already been sent in before. It was in the news that scanning was coming. Could have very easily sent in a large shipment before. That’s the problem with the Pennsylvania and other examples used to say scanning doesn’t work. The articles were published 6 months are less after scanning was put in place. What do the numbers look like now that it has been a while and all the hoarded stashes have been used up???
- Southern Bell - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 3:34 pm:
Now what?? First you don’t know it didn’t come in through the mail. The 2 part authentication of legal mail, promised for over a year still has not been put in place. Multiple instances of contraband drug soaked paper in the legal mail. Second, this Director still has no control over her agency. Less than a month ago a visitor at a facility was found bringing in 2 sheets of drug laced paper in her shoe. Director Hughs needs to chew gum and walk at the same time. Stop it in the mail where there are tons of examples of it happening and stop it at the gates. Well trained, well supervised staff.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 3:42 pm:
=== Less than a month ago a visitor at a facility was found bringing in 2 sheets of drug laced paper in her shoe===
That sounds like a success to me.
- Dotnonymous x - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 4:06 pm:
Prisons full of convicted drug smugglers/dealers figure out how to smuggle drugs into prisons…astonishing!
- Dotnonymous x - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 4:11 pm:
Guards who are for sale make it known to those who they think might want to know…somebody is going to do it… they tell themselves.
- Demoralized - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 4:23 pm:
If he removes a Director every time something makes its way into a prison he’s going to go through a lot of Directors. An unserious statement from an unserious person.
- Dotnonymous x - Thursday, Nov 20, 25 @ 4:30 pm:
The markup on drugs sold in every prison in America is enormous…”How would you like to increase your income by 300,000 dollars this year”, is a question every guard has been asked.