Historic but dilapidated Illinois prison will close while replacement is built, despite objections

When film star James Stewart went on location in 1948 at Stateville prison’s notorious roundhouse while portraying a Chicago newspaper reporter whose work freed a wrongly convicted killer in “Call Northside 777,” the lockup had already been standing nearly a quarter of a century.

Now, 76 years and hundreds of millions of dollars of neglected repairs later, the Illinois prison home of infamous killers Leopold and Loeb and Richard Speck, and the site of John Wayne Gacy’s execution, is shutting down.

The Illinois Department of Corrections already has begun transferring inmates from the facility in the Chicago suburb of Crest Hill, a contentious decision bolstered by a federal court order last month.

Last spring, Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration announced a $900 million plan to replace Stateville, which opened in 1925, with a state-of-the-art facility on adjacent, state-owned land. The campus also could see a new women’s prison. Supplanting the deteriorated Logan Correctional Center in central Illinois is part of the proposal; it might move to the Stateville campus. Completion could be three to five years away.

But that’s about all the administration has said. There has been no disclosure of a design plan; no timeline for demolition, groundbreaking or even deciding what will happen to prison staff.

Nonetheless, Corrections officials’ decision to shutter the facility this month was made long before the court decision made it inevitable. Ruling in a decade-old lawsuit challenging the health and safety of Stateville’s environment, U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood on Aug. 9 ordered most of the prison’s 430 inmates to be evacuated by Sept. 30.

“If they’re going to shut it down (Sept. 30), well, what are you doing with it? Are you transferring furniture out of there? Are you getting out a demo plan? Are you getting an environmental study done?” Ventura said. “These would be the next logical steps, but to have nothing, no response from DOC on this — again, highly concerning.”

Stateville has 939 staff members, including 676 who provide security. Hughes noted that Corrections Department understaffing works in their favor. In June, she said the agency had 1,000 vacancies within 63 miles of Stateville, including at facilities that will remain open on the Stateville campus. There are 500 vacancies to the south at the larger — and older — Pontiac Correctional Center and 168 at Sheridan prison to the west. When Stateville reopens, its former employees will have first dibs on returning.