Stateville prison employees to picket, urge “No chaos, no layoffs!”

Stateville Correctional Center employees say the looming threat to close the prison and the abrupt transfer of Stateville’s incarcerated population has the prison system in disarray and their jobs in doubt. Calling for “No Chaos, No Layoffs,” Stateville employees will demonstrate outside the prison near Joliet on Thursday, Aug. 29.

In response to a court order, the Illinois Department of Corrections has begun hastily transferring Stateville’s population to facilities up to 300 miles away. The transfers take incarcerated individuals out of their educational, employment and rehabilitative programming and make family visits from the Chicago area more difficult.

Hundreds of Stateville employees face the threat of layoff. The safety of thousands more workers is at risk in severely understaffed prisons now receiving Stateville’s population.

Employees of Stateville and other prisons, their supporters, elected officials and leaders of their union, AFSCME will picket and rally today to urge, “No Chaos, No Layoffs” outside the prison in Crest Hill at 4 p.m.

IDOC has proposed the closure of Stateville—a maximum-security prison with an incarcerated population of more than 400—for an indeterminate period of at least three to five years while a new facility is built at the same location.

Statevile employees and their union—the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—say that to minimize disruption to individuals in custody, employees and the state prison system as a whole, the current facility should remain open while a new one is built.