Abrupt transfers for Stateville prisoners in Illinois begin as officials rush to comply with a federal court ruling, disrupting prisoners' education

A federal ruling that came down two weeks ago ordering Illinois prison officials to empty the decrepit facility by Sept. 30 seems to have resulted in abrupt transfers from Stateville, despite what educators have said were assurances from the Illinois Department of Corrections that students and alumni from the same education programs would be allowed to move together.

In March, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the state’s plan to close and rebuild Stateville, along with Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison, due to conditions such as polluted water and crumbling buildings.

Despite its poor physical infrastructure, Stateville hosts five college programs and has some of the most robust programming of any prison in the state due to its proximity to Chicago.

About 30 students and alumni were on the list to be moved to Hill Correctional Center in downstate Galesburg – including Matthews – in order to stay with the Prison+Neighborhood Arts/Education Project. But Executive Director Arianna Salgado said Matthews and seven others were among those shipped to other facilities across the state this week. The nonprofit group, which works with Northeastern Illinois, started a petition on Wednesday asking the governor to stop the transfers.

“We’ve been advocating with IDOC for a group of our students to be able to move with us to the next facility that we end up at,” Salgado said. “We got the notification on Monday that several of our students were scheduled to be transferred this Thursday...to an institution that’s approximately five hours and more away from the City of Chicago.”

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