After reports of water contamination in Illinois prisons, groups are calling on the state to conduct a top-down review of the water and sewer systems in the facilities.

The state's Capital Development Board is currently conducting an assessment of prison infrastructure needs, with the goal of identifying structural updates needed for its facilities.

Jennifer Vollen Katz, executive director of the John Howard Association of Illinois (JHA), said the review should include water infrastructure. The JHA is one of six advocacy groups calling to expand the assessment.

"The State of Illinois has not made the resources available to provide ongoing maintenance and upkeep for these facilities," Vollen Katz contended. "Many of them are very old, and haven't had attention paid to their physical plant infrastructure in many, many years."

A recent investigation by The Appeal revealed the water at five Illinois prisons was infected with Legionella bacteria, which can cause Legionnaires' disease, a potentially fatal type of pneumonia. According to the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), there were more than 27,500 people in the prison system as of the end of March.

Vollen Katz contended, aside from the Legionella contamination, the IDOC has not been transparent about prior water-quality issues. She argued any updates to prisons' drinking water and sewer infrastructure should be subject to public review.

"We don't have a good understanding, and there doesn't seem to be ongoing public inspection, of water systems inside our prisons," Vollen Katz stated.

In prisons across the country, water quality has been a concern for incarcerated people and their advocates, as well as those who work in the facilities. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, one-third of state and federal prisons are built within three miles of a Superfund site, where pollution is serious enough to warrant a federal response.

A controversial new law is set to take effect next week, requiring Hoosiers to upload sensitive documents, including driver's licenses and Social Security numbers, to access adult content online. The measure aims to prevent minors from viewing explicit materials, but it has sparked significant concerns.

Chris Daley, executive director of the ACLU of Indiana, argues the law infringes on constitutional rights by excessively burdening access for Hoosiers.

"You can't do that in a way that impermissibly burdens an adult's access to the same material. And the state can't use a means to limit a minor's access to adult material if there's a less burdensome means available to do so," Daley said.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita supports the law, citing the need to protect children from the psychological impacts of explicit material.

Opponents question the effectiveness of the measure, pointing out that minors could still access adult content through unregulated sites or by using VPNs.

The law also raises concerns about potential censorship of sex education and LGBTQ+ content. Sen. Liz Brown, D-Fort Wayne, chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee when the law made its way through the Statehouse in the 2024 session. She suggests porn sites find it easier to adapt than comply - recently cutting its feed in states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Utah.

"This isn't about eliminating pornography from the state of Indiana - although I would be OK with this," Brown said. "Pornhub -- and I can't speak for that business -- but they decided that their business model was easier, which would indicate to me that they knew at the time they were operating that they were having minors access their material."

Pornhub and other operators are seeking to block the law, arguing it impinges on adults' free speech and other constitutional rights.


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A new bill that takes effect next Monday will allow incarcerated Mississippians to request an absentee ballot in time for the presidential election on November 5.

House Bill 1406 will impact incarcerated Mississippians who have not been convicted of any of the 23 disenfranchisement crimes to be eligible to participate in the electoral process.

Paloma Wu, deputy director of impact litigation at the Mississippi Center for Justice, said they want all eligible Mississippians to vote because it's better for democracy. She added the Magnolia State has a limited excuse-only absentee ballot, meaning people can vote absentee, but only in specific circumstances.

"Many people who are held in jail and imprisoned in Mississippi are actually eligible to vote. And for one large group of those people, they had no excuse, which would have applied to them," she said.

Wu pointed out that Mississippi has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation, with more than 1,000 people per 100,000 residents behind bars.

Wu noted those who are convicted of one of 23 disenfranchising crimes in a Mississippi court are automatically banned from voting for life. She added the history behind the disfranchising law was to prevent people of color from voting.

"Our list of disenfranchising crimes was created to target primarily descendants of recently enslaved people back in 1890," she explained.

Wu pointed out that her organization, along with other advocacy groups, Mississippi Votes, Black Voters Matter, and Mississippi Center for Re-Entry, collaborated with the state throughout the 2024 legislative session to get House Bill 1406 passed.

Mississippi's pilot work-release program for incarcerated individuals has been extended to three years.

The program allows qualified participants to gain job skills and earn money while serving their sentence.

Wil Ervin, senior vice president of the advocacy group Empower Mississippi, said the existing law has a pilot work-release program operated by the Mississippi Department of Corrections at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. It is limited to only 25 participants, but the expansion of Senate Bill 2445 will include more state and regional correctional facilities.

"Obviously, we recognize the importance of an individual having a job both while they're in prison and when they get out," Ervin pointed out. "Having a job is one of the biggest predictors of recidivism for individuals once they're released from prison."

Ervin noted during the legislative session, his organization worked with the bill's author, Sen. Juan Barnett, D-Heidelberg, and House Corrections Chairperson Becky Curry to expand the program.

They decided to expand this program statewide at the end of the session whenever the conference report from the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review was released.

He added the working wage participants will receive is higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

"The PEER report that was released last year shows that average wages were $13.35 an hour," Ervin explained. "Under the new bill, 15% goes back to administration of the program; 25% goes towards child support fines, fees, restitution, court costs."

Ervin added 50% goes into a savings account, which will be made available to the individual when they are released. He pointed out another 10% can be used for commissary and incidental expenses while they are in prison.


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