The joint hearing of the House Mental Health and Addiction Committee and the Restorative Justice and Public Safety Committee was convened by Democratic state Reps. Lindsey LaPointe and Kelly Cassidy, both of Chicago, in response to reporting that documented 70 fires at the facility in recent years. Men held there described setting their cells — or themselves — ablaze because conditions had left them hopeless. One man required a skin graft, another lost a leg, and two died.

"'We're trying' is no longer going to be enough of an answer," Cassidy said, expressing long-standing frustration with the state's prison conditions.

Illinois Department of Corrections Director Latoya Hughes told lawmakers that 47% of people in state prisons have a mental illness and that correctional facilities were never built to deliver long-term treatment. Prison administrators insisted access to psychiatrists at Joliet was exceptional and that men there can take part in group therapy and activities.

But an employee at the prison and lawyers for incarcerated people described a starkly different reality to the dozens of people gathered in downtown Chicago.

Amanda Antholt, managing attorney at the disability law firm Equip for Equality, said people at Joliet rarely receive individual therapy and instead face harsh punishment. She said officers pepper spray people who engage in self-harm.

Sheena McClain, a Joliet employee and president of her AFSCME local, said the facility has failed to take basic fire-safety steps such as installing sprinklers. She said staff are asked "to rush into smoke-filled cells, in some cases with little more than an N-95 mask to protect them."

Lawmakers repeatedly complained they could not get accurate information about what happens inside state prisons. State Rep. Gregg Johnson, D-East Moline, who spent 32 years working in the Department of Corrections before joining the legislature, said he was troubled that he could not get clear answers to his questions.

The hearing centered in part on the case of Jason Stephens, whose death was detailed in the reporting. In 2024, Stephens repeatedly complained that the prison was failing to treat his sickle cell disease, which caused him extreme pain. He threatened to harm himself unless he received help. On July 27, 2024, he set a fire in his cell.

Surveillance video reviewed by reporters showed Joliet guards left Stephens locked in the smoke-filled cell for about 30 minutes. When firefighters placed him in an ambulance for the hospital, correctional officers refused to open the gate for nearly 28 more minutes while they waited on paperwork and guards to accompany the ambulance. Stephens died two weeks later.

Department representatives told lawmakers they were limited in what they could disclose because of pending litigation. Stephens' estate is suing the department over his death.

Antholt said the officers on duty that night were part of a broader, harmful system.

"Jason Stephens died because he was so desperate to get the help that he needed, that he did the one thing he thought would give the people holding him in that cell no choice but to help him," Antholt said. "He was wrong."

Lawmakers also held a second hearing Tuesday on creating an office to provide independent oversight of the state's prison system. State Sen. Rachel Ventura, a Democrat whose district includes Joliet, recently filed a resolution calling for an independent inspection of fire safety at the Joliet Treatment Center.

The testimony underscored a central tension: a facility meant to heal is instead the site of repeated self-immolations, and the state's own watchdog structures remain unable to fully account for what happens behind its walls.