Joliet Correctional Center

Joliet Prison; south wall, looking north.

Joliet Correctional Center, which was a completely separate prison from Stateville Correctional Center in nearby Crest Hill, opened in 1858. The prison was built with convict labor leased by the state to contractor Lorenzo P. Sanger and warden Samuel K. Casey. The limestone used to build the prison was quarried on the site.[2] The first 33 inmates arrived from Alton in May 1858 to begin construction; the last prisoners were transferred in July 1860. Both criminals and prisoners of war were confined there during the Civil War. The first corrections officer to be killed there was Joseph Clark in 1865. By 1872 the population had reached 1,239, a record number for a single prison. From the 1870s the prison had work contracts with local businesses.

The penitentiary's original plans included a one-hundred cell "Female Cell House" located inside the male penitentiary. Female prisoners were housed adjacent to men's cells from 1859 until 1870, when they were moved to the fourth floor of the central administration building. In 1896 a separate, one-hundred cellblock "Joliet Women's Prison" was built across the street from the male penitentiary. In design it was an exact mini-replica of the male prison. In 1933 all female prisoners were moved to the Oakdale Women's Reformatory (later known as Dwight Correctional Center) and the facility was used for male prisoners.[3]The women's prison was converted into secondary facility to house male prisoners, making Joliet Prison an all-male prison.[4]

The prison was slow to modernize. There was no running water or toilets in the cells in 1910. The construction of the nearby Stateville Correctional Center began in 1917 and opened in March 1925 was meant to lead to the swift closure of Joliet. This did not happen, and both prisons operated simultaneously for the rest of the 20th Century.

In 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were given life sentences to be served at Joliet (after their successful defense—from the death penalty—by Clarence Darrow). Their case was known as "the crime of the century" at the time after kidnapping and murdering Robert Franks. The duo went on to revamp the prison's educational system, adding a high school curriculum to help inmates who are seeking for a tertiary education.[5]

In 1933 Lester Joseph Gillis (Baby Face Nelson) was released from Joliet Prison, and a mock-up of the foyer is shown in the 1957 movie, "Baby Face Nelson" where Gillis (played by Mickey Rooney) is seen both entering and leaving the facility with a suitcase in his hand. The name of the prison can be seen in his exit sequence.

From at least the early 1960s, the prison included a reception and classification center for northern Illinois, holding new prisoners for less than a month before their final assignments and processing over 20,000 a year. In addition to the prisoners temporarily held in the R&C unit, Joliet maintained a large population of permanent inmates.

In the late 1960's quasi-ethical hepatitis experiments at Willowbrook State School on developmentally disabled children became controversial. When these were discontinued, the US Army recruited "volunteers" at Joliet to continue the experiments. In reality, the "volunteers" were Vietnam-draft conscientious objectors, who agreed to drink feces-laden chocolate milkshakes and exposed to the feces of other inmates in an effort to mass-produce and isolate the virus that caused Hepatitis A.[6] The Army was especially interested in Hepatitis A because it was a classic disease of overcrowding and unsanitary conditions common in prisons and military camps.[7]

In 1975, members of the Almighty Black P. Stone Nation and other Chicago street gangs took over a cell block and held several corrections officers hostage. The warden at the time, Fred L. Finkbeiner, spoke to the inmates through a bullhorn and promised they would not be harmed. Their primary grievance was the fact that they were being transferred to other prisons because they had too much control over other inmates at Joliet. One former gang member, Herbert "Cadillac" Catlett, had reformed and been cooperating with the administration to bring about positive change. He tried to reason with the rioting inmates and was murdered. Warden Finkbeiner was standing in Catlett's blood as he spoke to the inmates, and the hostage situation was resolved. The warden later eulogized Catlett at an African-American church in Chicago Heights.

The number of inmates peaked at 1,300 in 1990 and was still 1,156 in 2000, although capacity had been raised to 1,300 over 1999–2000, from 1,180 previously. In 2000 there were 541 staff.

Joliet Correctional Center closed as a holding prison in 2002. Budget cuts and the obsolete and dangerous nature of the buildings were the cited reasons. All inmates and most staff were transferred to Stateville Correctional Center.

As of 2018 the Joliet Area Historical Museum is running tours of the penitentiary for Route 66 travelers and other interested parties. Different tours are being offered: History, photography/tripod friendly and private tours.[8] The facility was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.[9]

On May 30, 2017, one of the buildings (the mattress factory) in Joliet Correctional Center was heavily damaged by fire, the cause of which was later determined to be arson. This is the third building to be severely damaged or destroyed by fire at the facility.[10][11]

• List of Illinois state prisons
• Fox River State Penitentiary

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joliet Correctional Center.

• "Joliet Correctional Center" Illinois Department of Corrections (Archive)
• Joliet Prison at Google Maps
• "Stateville Correctional Center". The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC). Archived from the original on 2006-09-23. Retrieved 2006-09-05. Information on Joliet Prison at the bottom of the page.