In 1857, convicts began breaking rock to build the walls of the Illinois State penitentiary at Joliet, the prison that would later confine them. For a century a

The iron bars of Joliet Prison might once have held John Wayne Gacy, Baby Face Nelson and other notorious inmates as unwilling guests, but their stories now des

"Named warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary in 1913, Edmund Allen arrived with a glamorous new wife and ambitious plans of reform that did away with years

Chicago Tribune editor Bill O'Connell O'Connell explores one of the most heinous but least publicized crimes in Illinois history: the 1968 abduction, sexual ass

"An historical and sociological study of a penitentiary. It presents fifty years of transformation and change of a large state prison..."--Foreword.