Joliet Correctional Center, better known as Joliet Prison, served the state of Illinois from 1858 until 2002. It is now the home to Fox’s Prison Break. It is not the first time the prison has seen Hollywood lights however. In 1980, Joliet was featured in the movie The Blue Brothers. Before we get into the Hollywood side of Joliet, let’s look at the history, and learn about some of it’s stories.
     
Joliet was built by convicts in the late 1850s at the cost of seventy five thousand dollars to replace Alton Prison. The design of the prison was masterminded by William W. Boyington, who also is credited in designing the Chicago Water Tower and the Capitol in Springfield. He created his vision for the prison based on the Panopticon ideas of Jeremy Bentham. The concept of this design is to allow an observer to observe all prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not. At the time of building it was the largest prison in the country, housing up to 761 prisoners, and the design became a model for United States prisons.
 

:. The first prisoners to be housed there arrived in May of 1858.

:. During the civil war the prison served both criminals and prisoners of war.

:. The first corrections officer to be killed there was Joseph Clark in 1865.

:. By 1872 the total population was 1239, which set a record for the number of prisoners in a single prison.

:. In 1910, the prison still had no running water or toilets in the cells.
   
By the 1990s the prison was used mainly for a reception and classification center for northern Illinois, holding prisoners for less than a month and processing over 20,000 a year. Joliet Correctional Center closed as a holding prison in February 2002. Budget cuts and the obsolete and dangerous nature of the buildings were the cited reasons. All inmates and most staff were transferred to new buildings built at Stateville, the other maximum security prison in Joliet. 

 
Joliet continued as an intake center until March 2004.

  
Research written up by Rose 

[ back ]