By Doug Finke
The State Journal-Register
LINCOLN, Ill. — The state is taking bids on renovating a building at the Logan Correctional Center near Lincoln for use by inmates with mental illnesses.
The work is part of the ongoing effort by the Department of Corrections to comply with a settlement agreement reached in a lawsuit over the department’s treatment of inmates with mental health issues.
The Capital Development Board is scheduled to open bids on the project Thursday.
“The project includes renovating a building to create a residential treatment unit,” said CDB spokeswoman Allie Bovis.
A timetable for the project “depends on who wins the bid and what their timeline is,” Bovis said.
Logan, which is Illinois’ primary women’s prison, will have one of the four residential treatment units that Corrections agreed to have as part of the settlement of the Rasho lawsuit earlier this year. The lawsuit was named for Ashoor Rasho, who was sentenced to an eight-year prison term for burglary in 1996.
However, Rasho was convicted of committing assaults in prison and attempting suicide, which added years to his sentence. A lawsuit was filed accusing Corrections of not providing adequate mental health treatment for inmates who needed it, thereby violating their constitutional rights. An estimated 11,000 Illinois prison inmates receive mental health care.
The settlement required Corrections to hire additional mental health workers and to establish residential treatment units at four Corrections’ facilities. In addition to Logan, the units are at Dixon, Pontiac and the former Illinois Youth Center in Joliet. Corrections has three years to complete construction.
Corrections spokeswoman Nicole Wilson said the latest project is the second phase for a residential treatment unit at Logan. It will expand the facility by 28 beds and “involves renovating and upgrading an existing structure to foster a therapeutic environment and make it consistent with current standards of safety and security,” she said.
A study released last week found that Logan inmates have been called “crazy” and “worthless” by corrections officers, are sometimes placed in an unpadded open-bar “crisis cage” and receive harsher discipline than men for similar offenses.
The federally funded review determined that the mostly nonviolent women at Logan are often classified as higher security risks than necessary, which with disproportionate discipline needlessly extends their stays.
In response to the findings, the state’s corrections director, John Baldwin, pledged additional staff training.