Summers in prison are known for being stifling Lee hot and during repeated lockdown conditions, a prison cell can feel more like solitary confinement.

Awt Tw news analysis shows this year.

People incarcerated in Illinois are seeing a record amount of lockdowns.

Our Blair Paddock joins us now with more Blair.

What is the cause of these high lockdowns?

Yeah.

So the high lockdowns are largely due to staffing shortages.

It you see categorizes lockdowns in 2 ways.

One being administrative, which is.

>> Routine disruptions to facility that can be staffing shortages or incident based lockdowns.

And those are, you know, an incident happening and the safety or security of facility being compromised.

And as you can see, administrative lockdowns are way up.

One example, looking at the down state prison Menard.

They've been on lockdown nearly every day since October 2023. and January to mid July of this year, they've only been able to stop about 44% of that prison on average.

What are conditions like during lockdowns?

Yeah, they're pretty similar to solitary confinement.

Going back an art.

I talked to a guy who had seen the cafeteria for the first time this summer.

And he's been for about 3 years.

visitation can get canceled or not getting out of cell yard time.

They have streaming services on these new tablets that they have.

But those prices can add up.

So it can be really draining both physically and mentally be in walked on.

24 7, so limited fresh air at the very least, obviously no trips to the commissary or libraries are limiting trips.

So what is the Illinois Department of Corrections have to say about this high amount of lockdowns?

Yeah.

So they say that they're working on it.

both they and the union that represents most correctional workers asked me they pointed to these regional training facilities that they say are picking up the pace of staffing.

But, you know, I talked to the John Howard Association, their prison watchdog group in the state in the SE.

If staffing numbers can't get up, if men aren't cannot keep a facility staffed, you know, they should look consolidating facilities, which I'm sure, of course, is a whole other conversation that lots of folks that have to weigh in where.

Patrick, thank you so much.

Thank you.