CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Ground was broken Monday morning in Joliet for a 200-bed in-patient facility that will primarily serve Illinois prison inmates with serious mental illness.
Illinois Department of Corrections Director John Baldwin said "this is going to fundamentally change how somebody leaves us."
Baldwin admits that, when mentally ill inmates are let out of prison, the outcomes are not good. Many times, they wind up back in prison.
He estimates 14-15 percent of the 38,655 inmates have serious mental illinesses with 30-35 percent of the total inmate population having a mental illness of some kind.
"We are dealing with them in very old facilities. Some have been converted to residential treatment units that are good, but they aren't at this level. Some people need a hospital-like setting," Baldwin said.
Andrea Tack is warden at the Joliet Treatment Center and said that, with thousands of seriously mentally ill inmates in the prison system, a state-of-the-art facility is needed.
Marcus Hardy, the executive assistant to the director of the IDOC said of the groundbreaking that, "History is being made here today. With the construction of a state-of-the-art in-patient treatment center, IDOC is taking a major leap forward."
State Rep. Lawrence Walsh Jr. said, "This is a moment in history where the state of Illinois actually got something right. What we're doing here today is making right what has been the past wronged."
