However, the AP obtained minutes from a meeting at a separate facility nearly a year before Stateville's shutdown in which administrators discouraged staff from bumping troublemakers up to a higher risk level because “maximum security beds are in short supply.”.
Under the Illinois public records law, AP obtained a list of 406 inmates housed at Stateville as of August 2024 and matched each with the prison to which they’d been transferred, noting its security level.
Although not part of the latest transfers, an offender moved to Sheridan Correctional Center in north-central Illinois from Stateville in November 2023 viciously attacked a prison educator, who required facial reconstruction surgery, according to the employees' union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.
Corrections spokesperson Naomi Puzzello said all of the transfers from Stateville are appropriately housed and that none was reclassified to a lower security level to match that of the receiving prison.
In minutes obtained by the AP from a December 2023 management meeting at Dixon Correctional Center in northern Illinois, administrators advised staff to “use good judgment” before upgrading a troublemaker's risk level to maximum, necessitating a transfer.
