Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security prison in Illinois, is known for housing notorious criminals such as Leopold and Loeb, Richard Speck, and John Wayne Gacy. It is also known for its panopticon watchtower and controversial malaria experiments conducted on inmates in the 1940s-60s.
Stateville Correctional Center is one of the most notorious prisons in US history. Built in 1925 in Crest Hill, Illinois, the maximum security state prison has housed a number of well-known and notorious criminals, such as Leopold and Loeb, Richard Speck, and John Wayne Gacy. It is also one of the most architecturally striking prisons, with the only remaining panopticon – a central tower with a full view of the surrounding prison cells – in the US Stateville Correctional Center is also known as a controversial testing site for vaccines against malaria from the 1940s-60s. The prison remains in operation today, located off historic Route 66.
Stateville Correctional Center, like many other famous prisons, may be best known for the notorious criminals who have resided there. Leopold and Loeb, the Ivy League-educated killers in search of the perfect crime, were incarcerated in Stateville. Richard Loeb died while in prison after being attacked by another inmate. Nathan Leopold was released early in 1958. Richard Speck, who killed eight Chicago nursing students, was also housed in Stateville. In 1996, a videotape from 1988 was publicly released, showing Speck partying freely in his Stateville cell, apparently with drugs. The video sparked widespread controversy and accusations for lax policing in American prisons. John Wayne Gacy, a notorious serial killer, received a lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center in 1994.
F-house, the name of one of the Stateville Correctional Center’s cell houses, is notable for being the last remaining cell block in the United States to feature a panopticon. A panopticon is a watchtower that sits in the middle of a prison and offers a 360-degree point of view. With the superior advantage of the tower, inmates can never be sure whether or not they are being watched. The concept of the panopticon was developed by Jeremy Bentham, an English philosopher who believed that the structure would be a tool for moral reform in prison. His theory was that if prisoners were to assume they were always being watched, behavior among inmates might improve, even with fewer guards on duty. Fewer guards required would also help prisons save money.
In the 1940s, the US Army, in conjunction with the University of Chicago, began conducting malaria experiments on Stateville Correctional Center inmates – Leopold being one of them. The aim was not only to study the effects of malaria in a controlled environment, but also to test whether certain drugs and vaccinations could be effective in fighting the disease. Although the tests were voluntary, with volunteers offered the incentive of lesser prison sentences, they sparked controversy among groups who believed such humane testing was unethical. At the 1946 Nuremberg Medical Trials, in which Nazi Party members were convicted of crimes against humanity, it was argued that the experimentation taking place in Stateville was not morally different from that which the Nazis had afflicted on Jews. Ultimately, however, the Stateville experiments were not deemed unethical and continued for the next two decades.
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