Bureau of Prisons Is Closing Troubled, Violent Detention Unit in Illinois

“We’re nonetheless involved about dropping our jobs, about workers being compelled to switch to totally different establishments,” stated Jonathan Zumkehr, the president of Thomson’s native union department. “Individuals have purchased homes, our members are individuals who stay locally, and shutting would have a devastating impact.”

The choice to shutter Thomson’s restrictive unit comes a number of weeks after Justice Division officers performed a web site go to to analyze claims that the jail’s new warden was not doing sufficient to safeguard workers, particularly ladies, from lewd and abusive habits of male inmates.

In January, officers with the union representing the jail’s workers, the American Federation of Authorities Workers, referred to as for the elimination of the warden, Thomas Bergami, claiming he had did not take steps — together with the set up of shutters on the portals of cells — to guard guards and different workers.

The union cited 321 incidents final yr of “sexual misconduct in opposition to workers,” together with episodes the place inmates uncovered themselves or masturbated in entrance of workers, in a letter to senior bureau officers.

“Our union has raised repeated issues about this persistent sample of abuse, however nothing has been completed in response,” Everett Kelley, the union’s president, stated in a press release. “Workers are being subjected to this felony habits repeatedly but are getting no help from their employer in placing an finish to this cycle. This failure of management should be addressed.”

Bureau officers wouldn’t say if Mr. Bergami would stay as warden.

Thomson has had a protracted and troubled historical past. It was constructed beginning in 1999, at a price of $140 million, by the state of Illinois, however by no means housed state prisoners. The jail was then purchased by the federal authorities for $160 million a number of years later and was briefly thought-about instead for detainees housed at Guantánamo Bay.

The jail can accommodate greater than 2,000 inmates in eight cell blocks — however it has averaged lower than half that quantity over time.