Alleged abuse of inmates at IL prison under investigation

WASHINGTON (WAND) - A report alleging abusive conduct by staff of an Illinois prison led to a federal investigation.

The investigation by the Department of Justice Inspector General follows a report published by NPR and The Marshall Project. It details seven inmate deaths at the United States Penitentiary Thomson (USP Thomson) in Thomson, Ill.

A letter sent by U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and U.S Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL) to the IG's office detailed alleged "serious abuses" by prison staff and the deaths. Two of the deaths were suicides, they said, while five were homicides by fellow Special Management Unit (SMU) residents.

The most serious allegations include staff stoking tensions on purpose between cellmates and pairing inmates who they knew would attack each other; staff encouraging assaults against sex offenders and lying to residents to claim a person was a sex offender; shackling men to a bed for hours in their own urine and feces without food or water in a "torture room"; using shackling as a punishment for men who refused to be housed with a cellmate who they believed would kill them; and other accusations.

In one report allegation, lawmakers said staff laughed and joked at the expense of a Jewish man they were guarding as he died in a hospital. They said he had been assaulted after staff put him in a recreation cage with known white supremacists.

"If these reports prove accurate, they describe conduct that would almost certainly contravene numerous Bureau of Prisons policies, as well as infringing the civil rights of individuals in BOP custody and possibly violating federal criminal statutes," the letter from lawmakers said.

Durbin called the report "deeply disturbing" in his comments. Duckworth added the alleged conduct is "unacceptable" and said action must be taken to keep it from happening again.

USP Thomson and other BOP facilities have dealt with a staffing crisis. Durbin, Duckworth and Bustos have been fighting to address the issue and, in April 2021, lawmakers sent a letter to then BOP officials urging the approval of funding for a 25 percent retention bonus for almost all USP Thomson staff. The funding was secured five months later.

See the full letter in a PDF document attached to this story.