Katrina Baugh: Even a gridlocked Congress passed prison oversight. Why can’t Illinois do the same?

 OPINION – COMMENTARY

By KATRINA BAUGHKATRINA BAUGH | Special to the Tribune

Historically, prison systems in the U.S. are defined by their lack of transparency. This is often defended in the name of security. However, 1 in 2 U.S. adults have experienced incarceration in their family and, as a result, have dealt firsthand with hearing awful stories about what their loved ones are going through. Complaints filed through the official channels too often fall on deaf ears, since the people receiving the complaints are often involved in creating these conditions in the first place.

The need for an independent office to examine what is happening in our system is immense. It is a need rooted in the painful experiences of millions of Americans who have lived and worked in our nation’s prison systems. Many of those folks have spoken up and faced retaliation that has gone unnoticed by those of us outside the system. Many of those folks have not spoken up for fear of retaliation that will go unchecked by anyone outside the system.

At the federal level, we’ve seen steps made under multiple presidential administrations to resolve these injustices. In 2024, the Federal Prison Oversight Oversight Act (FPOA) was passed with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. This theThis legislation established a correctional ombudsman position in the Department of Justice to investigate complaints from incarcerated individuals, family members, Federal Bureau of Prisons staff, members of Congress and the judiciary.

The FPOA was signed into law by President Joe Biden. Last month, President Donald Trump signed the 2026 appropriations bill (H.R. 6938) into effect, which included language directing the DOJ to move forward with creating an implementation plan. The continued bipartisan support for transparency and accountability in the Bureau of Prisons speaks to its essential nature, and, unfortunately, the deep and widespread pain that has been experienced in its absence. When a policy carries more than just bipartisan support but actively inspires our sitting president to move forward an initiative of his predecessor, that policy must genuinely be essential.

With federal cooperation like that in a time like this, I find myself searching for cooperation on this issue here in Illinois. Why can’t we agree on an enormously enormously popular policy that benefits half of all Illinoisans?

We’ve seen an effort in the past year, namely the measures HB1438 and HB1643, propose initial steps to establish an ombudsman for the Illinois Department of Corrections before the legislation was buried in various committee hearings. If these bills were to pass, this new position would investigate complaints in Illinois’ prison system to help ensure basic livability standards are being met in our prisons. 

This is an easy yes for any legislator who believes in basic human dignity and fiscal responsibility. The ombudsman office would provide a level of protection against retaliation for those who file complaints and encourage sufficient provision of medical care in our carceral system, which is a growing necessity as our prison population rapidly ages. 

While opponents might argue that creating a new office is expensive, its proposed budget allocation is less than 0.001% of state Department of Corrections’ annual budget. Furthermore, we spend billions of dollars annually to incarcerate about 30,000 people, and those people frequently filel egitimate, unresolved grievances that the state then pays for as lawsuit settlements. In 2023, the Illinois Department of Corrections paid out over $13million, nearly 10 times the cost of the proposed ombudsman office. If this office were to have only a 10% success rate of solving issues the department itself could not, it already would pay for itself. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the prison system is one that is worth examining more closely. If the federal government can agree on that, across party lines in Congress and several presidential administrations, I hope that Illinois can agree too.

Katrina Baugh is the Illinois policy consultant for the criminal justice and sentencing reform organization FAMM.

The post Katrina Baugh: Even a gridlocked Congress passed prison oversight. Why can’t Illinois do the same? first appeared on Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation.