The death of a 51-year-old man incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center last week amplified concerns among prison rights advocates over the living conditions at the nearly century-old prison, which Gov. J.B.
Pritzker’s administration plans to tear down and rebuild because it has been deemed decrepit beyond repair. The Will County coroner’s office did not yet have a cause of death for Michael Broadway, who had earned a college degree while serving a 75-year sentence for a 2005 murder, and a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Corrections would only say the agency is investigating. But his death during a severe heat wave has led inmates and prison advocates to put the blame at least partly on the squalid environment inside Stateville, where accounts from people incarcerated there and others in legislative hearings and elsewhere describe poor ventilation, visible mold, rodent infestations and unsanitary drinking water.
The prison’s housing units also lack air conditioning, according to the John Howard Association, a prison watchdog group. No timeline has been set for tearing down and rebuilding the prison, a process that could begin as soon as September but is expected to take three to five years, and state officials have also not laid out a plan for how those housed in the prison will be handled during the transition. Jennifer Vollen-Katz, John Howard’s executive director, said the poor conditions at Stateville “impact everybody, the people that are inca.
