This story was reported and published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Here' s a look at some of the deadliest Indiana prisons: 1. Ebony Everson A cell at U.S. Penitentiary, Thomson in Illinois. I said no. Aside from the American public's pervasive lack of political involvement, which seems to keep them from storming anything except a Wal-Mart these days, there is also the inconvenient fact that American prisons are so far away from everything that the proverbial angry mob would have to endure a six-hour bus trip ahead of time. While serving a life term for murder, Fox strangled his cellmate at Menard Correctional Center in 2004. (As of May 2022, prison officials report that 78% of corrections officer positions at Thomson are filled. The Joliet Treatment Center, southwest of Chicago, is one of four facilities now providing mental health care to some of Illinois' sickest inmates. "It's beyond egregious," said Jack Donson, a corrections consultant and former Federal Bureau of Prisons official. This prison is like living in hell. On May 4, 1873, a crowd of more than 200 gathered on the bridge to watch a baptism . Black Dolphin Prison (aka penal colony No. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'prisonsinfo_com-large-leaderboard-2','ezslot_3',112,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-prisonsinfo_com-large-leaderboard-2-0');The following are the problems faced by Illinois prisons which include: One of the biggest reasons why the prison population is so high in Illinois is due to the state and authorities failing to stop prison admission for technical violations of probation and paroles. Ebony Everson has memorials to her brother, Bobby, throughout her home. You become an inventory number, a line-item on a balance sheet. The guards denied it. Bobby Everson and a letter he wrote to his family while he was incarcerated in the Special Management Unit at the new U.S. penitentiary in Thomson, Ill. Bobby Everson was nearing the end of his decade-long federal prison sentence, but he feared he wouldn't make it home alive. Eastern State Penitentiary operated from 1829 to 1971. Officers then chained him down to a concrete bed, beat his body and genitals with shields and left him there through the night, according to his court filing. TAMMS, Ill. Every once in a while, Joseph Dole stands in a back corner of the walled-in outdoor recreation area at Tamms Correctional Center straining to catch a ray of sunlight. "About 4 square feet gets sun," said Dole, a rail-thin convicted murderer who is serving a life sentence. hide caption. This short prison documentary will show you some of the darker and dangerous aspects of prison. Forget about your dreams and ambitions, your plans and goals, because those get put on hold too. It is a cold and sterilized form of detention, a little taste of a Supermax prison for everyone. Everson, who the family called AJ, told them he was locked down nearly 24 hours a day with a cellmate, in cells so small that the toilet was crammed next to the bottom bunk. Desperate for help, he slipped a note about his blood pressure to a nurse, sneaking in tiny print, "please help me, I'm being sexually assaulted." "He was a victim of staff and prisoners alike, the same prisoner who was put in chains, repeatedly slapped in the face, picked up and slammed, and had gas sprayed in his face.". "For many years, I have sounded the alarm on BOP's widespread failings," he wrote. PHILLIPS: Sort of right in the middle of his upper chest, sort of on, like, the breastbone area, and it was just a large Star of David. hide caption. "They are denied food. 10 Worst Prisons In The United States USA Based On Different Metrics Worst Prisons In The US Listed, 10 Worst Prisons In The State of Michigan, 10 Worst Prisons In The State of Washington, 10 Worst Prisons In The State of Tennessee, Muskegon County Jail: Sheriff's Office Location, Information About This Prisons, How Many Inmates, and Visiting hours. Part of HuffPost News. Brandon Simonson and Kristopher Martin were known in prison as Whitey and No Luck. Bobby Everson and a letter he wrote to his family while he was incarcerated in the Special Management Unit at the new U.S. penitentiary in Thomson, Ill. There are no jobs and limited educational opportunities. Prison is purgatory. You are poked and prodded and stuck and drawn, photographed and printed and tagged and labeled. Opened. When she flew home from Iowa, her son's last letter was waiting in her mailbox. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. 1. "[But] if they refuse to be celled with a person who they think could kill them they get pulled out of the cell and put into restraints as a punishment. Located in Pinckneyville, Illinois, the facility was opened in 1998 and comprises five general population housing units along with segregation, administration, and health care units. The NRC serves as the major adult male intake and processing center for the northern portion of Illinois which, incidentally, contains the Chicago metropolitan area where 10 million out of the 12.5 million people of Illinois live. When the family received the body, there were scars on his son's wrists. NPR's Investigative Unit teamed up with The Marshall Project to look at a penitentiary in Thomson, Ill., that is one of the country's most violent and dangerous federal prisons. It was designed to house the state's most dangerous inmates. Big Muddy River Correctional Center: Located in Ina Illinois part of Jefferson County, Big Muddy River Correction Center is a medium-security prison. Carrying on the proud tradition of Illinois penal design, the NRC has become the hot new model for other states seeking to modernize their correctional systems. Sue Phillips holds a photograph of her son, Matthew. But life and death--just like freedom and security--can be defined, and redefined, in many ways. Before he retired several years ago, Welborn said, superiors sometimes didn't follow his recommendation to transfer out inmates who had passed muster. His term . It's been 150 years since the bridge collapsed, remaining the worst road-bridge disaster in American history. And what really makes limbo, limbo, is that it will invariably give you an entirely new understanding of time. He was sent to Death Row for the inmate homicide, but his sentence also was commuted by Ryan. But it sat vacant for years until the federal government bought the complex, at the urging of Illinois Congress members. "I just couldn't take it anymore. 2. For the guards, this is the only way through which they can exert pressure and discipline. SHAPIRO: This is all from the federal indictment of the two men. Over time, mirrors evolved into video surveillance cameras, and the observation tower became the security booth. Following is the list of prisons in the state of Illinois with information like their security levels, location, contact number, the housing capacity, and the gender they house in each prison. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'prisonsinfo_com-box-3','ezslot_4',115,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-prisonsinfo_com-box-3-0');The second prison on our list is the Menard Correctional Center. Congress members from Illinois appealed to the Bureau of Prisons in 2021 for worker retention bonuses, writing that the deaths at Thomson "may have been prevented with additional staff. Malik Rainey for NPR The Bureau of Prisons doesn't care about the damage they leave in their wake. And he said, Auntie, don't go nowhere now 'cause I'm coming out. Five months after Bobby's death, the Everson family had not received his death certificate or an autopsy report. He went to prison for selling heroin. NoSleep'tilParole! His sentence was commuted to life by former Illinois Gov. Your rent and bills stop being paid, your mail stops being picked up, your phone is never answered, your email is never downloaded, your refrigerator is never cleaned out, your dog is never walked or fed. That is why they call Stateville, "Hotel Hell.". But in June 2018, Bureau of Prisons officials announced they were moving the Special Management Unit from Lewisburg to Thomson. "The hardest part is the isolation," he said. "I've seen a lot of things, and I had never heard of something like this," said Richard Dvorak, a civil rights attorney in the Chicago area who has taken on Doe's case, along with another lawsuit out of Thomson. The annual growth of residents within its prison cells is roughly at 68%. "I believe it's dangerous.". Most people wouldn't think twice about doing anything for two weeks, until it's put into the proper context. "I feel the staff here is purposefully trying to put me in situations of conflict," he wrote to his cousin Roosevelt Murray in late October. PHILLIPS: They also had cells that contained Nazi memorabilia - mugs with swastikas on them, articles of literature promoting white supremacy, drawings of Hitler. Many of the buildings . Federal prisons across the country are facing growing scrutiny over outbreaks of violence and abuse by officers, as documented by The Associated Press. With longer sentences, we can expect the prison population to rise in coming years. Two men set themselves on fire in protest of the brutal conditions and were then forced into restraints, multiple prisoners told auditors. Boyd Weekley, a 49-year-old man from South Dakota, died less than a week later by hanging, according to prison records. Matt was Jewish. Devil's Island. The Bureau of Prisons confirmed in an email that his death was a suspected homicide. "It was determined the staff response was appropriate," he wrote. U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois, Five things to know about one of the deadliest federal prisons, reported and published in partnership with The Marshall Project, 2016 Marshall Project and NPR investigation, Inside Lewisburg Prison: A Choice Between A Violent Cellmate Or Shackles, Doubling Up Prisoners In 'Solitary' Creates Deadly Consequences. He is serving a life sentence. Aaron Marin for NPR Bureau spokesperson Taylor said he couldn't discuss Everson's death because it was still under investigation. Some advocates for men at Lewisburg hoped a new facility would mean better conditions. Richard Conner is among the state's most dangerous inmates, a convicted murderer who was locked up in solitary confinement at Illinois' only super-maximum security prison, where the "worst of. 20 of The Best and Worst Illinois Mugshots . Sue Phillips holds a photograph of her son, Matthew. A senior official with the Prison Officers' Association (POA) has described overcrowding in jails as the worst he has seen in more than 32 years. The move was to increase capacity, according to Taylor, the bureau spokesperson. An April 2018 report by an agency that oversees prison conditions confirmed that multiple men in the Special Management Unit at Lewisburg were being chained and shackled, sometimes for days. But there's been little national attention paid so far to the ongoing violence at Thomson. The new processing center is one of the largest prison facilities in the nation. He didn't deserve to die; he deserved to come home.". "When I worked [at Pontiac], I was scared," Trokey said of the maximum-security prison. It is here, at the NRC, that your real world identity is officially stripped from you, and you are given a new one. "Generally speaking, per BOP policy, restraints are not used as a method of punishing an inmate or in any manner which restricts blood circulation or obstructs the inmate's airways or in a manner that causes unnecessary physical pain or extreme discomfort," Taylor, the bureau spokesman, wrote in an email. But being Jewish was part of his identity, like that tattoo. Serving time in this prison is going to be filled with extreme discomfort. The ones to suffer are the inmates as due to staff shortages, their access to free time, and educational facilities are controlled and at times stopped thus adding to the discomfort and agony within inmates. It's a pain that just don't go away. Whatever needs to be done to make sure you are healthy, free of disease, and ready to work. In November 2020, Edsel Aaron Badoni, a 37-year-old member of the Navajo Nation, died from stab wounds after a fight with another prisoner. The prison is expensive, costing $27 million a year to run, or about $64,000 for each inmate, almost triple the state average.