Amid the loud political struggle over the potential relocation of the state women's prison at Lincoln, there is little disagreement that something needs to happen at the current Logan Correctional Center.
Jessica Chapman is a former inmate at Logan. She was released in 2021. After reading news articles on Logan, Chapman agreed to talk about her experience there. Chapman said conditions there are "unethical."
"The heat was unbearable," said Chapman. "As soon as I would wake up in the morning, my entire face was drenched in sweat. I couldn't go to the bathroom and wash my dishes without being completely soaked in sweat."
Chapman said in one eight-month period, there were six sewage backups with calf-deep dirty water in the bathrooms.
"That's not normal, especially if there are 100 women living in one house. You can't expect us to be OK with that," said Chapman, adding there are more recent accounts that tell her not much has changed since her release.
“A couple weeks ago my friend was talking to me on the phone and she started to say, ‘You’ll never believe what happened again on House 11. We started…but the showers were going out and somebody was here from the state.’ And as soon as she said somebody was here from the state the phone call went dead,” said Chapman.
It is not uncommon for correctional workers to monitor inmate communications, and they have the power to terminate calls. Chapman said she is not sure what happened, but her friend has not called back since.
Other problems Chapman encountered were frequent days-long power outages that lingered and deteriorated from a couple days when she arrived to almost a month toward the end of her time there.
“They used to tell us all the time we’re going to get this fixed. We’re going to make renovations, blah, blah, blah. But then two years later nothing has been done,” said Chapman.
It is not uncommon for people in communities that have a correctional facility threatened with closure to claim the state has purposefully neglected repairs in the expectation the prison would eventually deteriorate beyond repair. Chapman said it would be natural to suspect that at Logan based on the conditions she experienced.
“One hundred percent. I think that’s the best way to put it, just allowing it to hopefully fall apart so then they have no choice but to move it,” she said, adding she’s not sure the current facility can be repaired.
“With how long that Logan has sat in its disarray, I don’t think there’s much hope for it. A couple of the buildings, sure, but not many of those buildings have much left in them,” said Chapman.
Chapman said she sees both sides in the political debate over where to put a new prison — keeping it in Logan County or relocating to northern Illinois.
"Logan is a huge source of revenue for a lot of people down there, but my family had to drive five hours to come visit me," said Chapman.
Chapman now lives in Belvidere.
