* Sun-Times and The Marshall Project…

The Joliet Treatment Center opened in 2017 with the promise of being a new kind of prison in Illinois, designed to provide intensive mental health treatment. But in the years leading up to that night in the summer of 2024, incarcerated men and civil rights lawyers who visited the facility said the conditions declined. Men were kept locked in their cells for long stretches, with nothing to do. They complained about a lack of medical care and mental health treatment, which the prison system is legally obligated to provide. Men reported that guards used excessive force.

As the men grew more despondent, some became willing to do anything to draw attention to their troubles and resorted to setting their cells — or themselves — on fire.

One man needed surgery to graft new skin onto his charred calf.

Another lost a leg.

Two have died.

Last year, the prison — with a population of about 200 people — recorded roughly three fires a month.

Despite that, officials at the Joliet Treatment Center have repeatedly failed to meet their responsibilities to prevent or respond to the fires, government records show.

Cellblocks lacked sprinklers, and fire alarms were turned off or inoperable. At an annual inspection, the prison would not provide a fire evacuation plan. Guards delayed ambulances responding to emergencies at the prison or trying to take men with serious injuries to the hospital.

The Illinois Department of Corrections did not answer questions about the epidemic of fires at Joliet Treatment Center, but in an email a spokesperson wrote that it is “committed to ensuring the safety and security of staff, individuals in custody, and all persons who enter our facilities” and takes its responsibility to uphold requirements related to facility safety seriously.

Craig Haney, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and an expert on mental health in prisons, said the frequency of fires at the Joliet Treatment Center is a sign of abject hopelessness.

“These are the kinds of desperate acts that somebody takes when they feel they have no alternative,” Haney said.

This story gets worse with every paragraph. Go read the whole thing.