#illinois prisons

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“Shots Leading Prisoner Rioters,” Border Cities Star. March 21, 1931. Page 2. --- PHOTO shows Dr. Frank Chmelik attending Edward Devanie, one of the convicts shot by guards during the fire and riot at the Illinois State Penitentiary. Devanie was leading about 200 rioters in a rush on Warden Hill when guards wounded him.

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“After Convicts Set Illinois Prison Afire,” Border Cities Star. March 19, 1931. Page 16. --- HERE ARE two pictures taken after convicts at the Illinois State Penitentiary in Joliet yesterday afternoon set fire to the big prison and started a riot which led to the shooting of three of them. The picture at the top shows the interior of the kitchen at the prison while flames were still raging in the building. The lower picture shows Illinois National Guardsmen on duty inside the prison. The troops were called out when the fire got beyond control and hundreds of convicts joined in the riot. The fire loss is estimated at $500,000.

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“Find Gasoline Bomb And Knives In Prison,” Toronto Star. July 24, 1931. Page 01. ---- Guards Search Cells of Illinois Penitentiary ---- Joliet, Ill., July 24. (UP) - A crude gasoline bomb, capable of causing a heavy explosion, was found to-day in Stateville prison as guards started a cell-to-cell search of the penitentiary buildings on reports that certain prisoners were plotting a break.

The bomb and a homemade fuse were discovered in the cellhouse shortly after the guards had uncovered severel crudely-made knives.

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“As you motor southwest from Chicago, when you are almost within sight of Joliet, a big sign appears on the right of the highway: STATEVILLE. Behind it rises a broad, bare hill across whose desolate skyline stretches a wall. Above the wall rise four great, drab cheeseboxes. These are the cell blocks of Illinois' model penitentiary. Here, last week, occurred the first major prison riot of the year.

Warden of Stateville is Henry C. Hill, who also is in charge of the old State prison at Joliet, five miles away. Last month three convicts were trapped and killed as they tried to escape from that institution (TIME, March 2). Later a man died of heart failure while shackled in solitary confinement. Fortnight ago the angry inmates rioted (TIME, March 23). Two died from wounds.

Following that insurrection, Warden Hill announced that Chaplain George Whitmeyer, onetime rector of an Episcopal church in bloody Herrin, Ill., "had fomented discontent, carried messages for convicts and, knowingly or not, had been instrumental in a jail delivery plot." Chaplain Whitmeyer resigned three days after the thwarted escape. Said he: "I resigned because I was the man who disclosed the plans for the attempted prison escape, only to have the guards deliberately trap and shoot these three men after they had been allowed to climb down the outer wall. It was such brutality that aroused the other prisoners and led to the demonstration."

Early last week it was evident that the foment had not quieted in the old prison. Three convicts tried to start another outburst in the mess hall. And when the convict band at Stateville, practicing unguarded, fought among themselves over the question of inciting similar disturbance, prison officials knew that the newer institution had also been infected with the virus of revolt. They announced: "Things are hot right now. Anything might happen." It happened next day.

Two hundred men in the machine shop dropped their work, set fire to the place. Yelling, brandishing clubs, other inmates joined the riot, ignited the mess hall, two kitchens, laundry, paint shop, chair and shoe factories. The confusion increased. Eyes stinging with the yellow smoke, more than a thousand prisoners broke all the windows of the buildings which would not burn, destroyed their food supply, screamed, leaped, slipped, tumbled about in the thick mud left by melted snow. Finally Warden Hill walked out among them and ordered: "Go back to your cells or we'll fire." A Negro advanced threateningly, was shot down. The rest dispersed, having done $500,000 worth of damage in two hours. As a warning, highway police, militiamen, Chicago and Joliet constabulary paraded in the prison.

Newshawks learned that Nathan Leopold—who with Richard Loeb killed small Bobby Franks of Chicago seven years ago—was being transferred from the old prison to the new on the morning of the riot, but was sent back.

Two days later, with all the Stateville prisoners locked up on bread-&-water (plus one sausage per day), a legislative committee began to investigate the outbreaks. Still smouldering, the inmates of one cell-block staged one last demonstration to interrupt the proceedings. From the walls the legislators watched the men being driven back to their cells.

Chief cause of the riot seemed to be resentment against the State Pardon & Parole Board's administration of the indeterminate sentence law, by which the Board, and not judge or jury, ultimately fixes the time a prisoner must serve. Said round-faced, Roman Catholic Chaplain Elegius Weir: "One of the principal objections of the prisoners is that although all ten members of the Board pass upon the parole applications, only three of them actually come here to hear the cases. They claim they are allowed only one or two minutes to present their cases. They say they are sworn at by the board members. I have gone to Springfield myself several times to plead that changes be made in execution of this law and Warden Hill has also pleaded for changes. I know personally of at least 25 men in this penitentiary who were sent here for crimes they didn't commit." - “At Stateville,” Time. 3/30/1931, Vol. 17, Issue 13. p. 11. Photograph taken from James B. Jacobs, Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. p. 31