This reporting was made possible through the ARCC/Public Narrative Health Science Reporting Fellowship and the Chicago Community, Media & Research Partnership
People in Illinois prisons can identify what they need, request accommodations, and still wait months or years to receive them—if they receive them at all.
A man walks down a hallway in an Illinois state prison on his way to the cafeteria. A correctional officer shouts at him from behind, demanding that he stop.
The man keeps walking and is tackled to the ground by the officer. He is given a disciplinary ticket documenting his failure to comply with the officer’s orders.
The ticket elevates his security status, which determines his eligibility to participate in work and educational activities. He loses a job that he performed through a prison employment program—revoking his ability to earn “good time”—time off his sentence, gain work experience, and qualify for future opportunities.
The man, who is partially deaf, was unable to hear the officer’s request to stop. He writes multiple grievances appealing the ticket and explaining that he continued walking because he was unable to hear the officer.
After months, the ticket is expunged. But John has already lost his job, and his security status remains elevated, prohibiting him from applying for jobs and classes.
No help without accountability
“With the officers, there’s no accountability,” Joe* (whose name has been changed to protect his identity) who is in an Illinois prison, told The Chicago Reporter.
While in prison, Joe was diagnosed with arthritis and given a housing assignment near the medical center and cafeteria, as well as an elevator pass. Joe told TCR he was shocked when he was suddenly relocated to a housing unit in a different building without elevator access and assigned a top bunk.
“I had to go to healthcare [services] two times a day and they moved me two football fields away,” he said.
Joe’s health began to deteriorate before he was given an MRI that revealed he had a torn meniscus. During this period, Joe was also diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.
Using the prison’s grievance system, Joe requested accommodations and medical help, but he says he was stonewalled by prison staff for months. The slow moving process contributed to his worsening health, even after his family members reached out to prison administrators and government officials in Springfield.
“If you got write a grievance, your counselor has got 60 days to respond,” Joe said, noting that the process of appealing and escalating a grievance can extend the process to more than nine months, usually ending without a resolution.
“Whatever the counselors say, Springfield will fall in line and agree with that,” he told TCR.
A class-action settlement and eight years of empty promises
In a 2018 landmark settlement with IDOC, people who are Deaf or hard of hearing alleged that the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) denied them accommodations needed to communicate effectively and participate in prison programs and services. The lawsuit alleged that those failures violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as federal disability rights laws.
Under the settlement, IDOC agreed to provide accommodations including hearing screenings, individualized communication plans, interpreters and accessible communication technology. Eight years later, some of those promised accommodations still have not materialized.
For John*, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, the accommodations promised in the settlement never translated into practice.
Accommodation request denied
In March 2022, John was admitted to an Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) facility.
More than a year later, a clinician performed an intake assessment, noting that John was hard of hearing in one ear, and that he uses lip reading as well as sign language to communicate.
Following the screening, the doctor recommended issuing John a hearing aid, a vibrating watch to provide tactile notifications, an amplified phone, and a “hearing disability” marker for his ID card and cell to notify staff of his condition.
By April 2024, John still had not been issued the accommodations, according to documents obtained by The Chicago Reporter.
“This is my second request for a ‘pager watch’ accommodation,” he wrote in a request. “I’m continuing to miss chow lines, call passes, etc.”
A staff member denied John’s request, noting in his response that the inventory of pager watches for his housing unit had run out. A month later, John followed up with another request for a pager watch, noting that he was continuously missing mealtimes and alerts due to his inability to hear verbal announcements.
“The lack of accommodation is affecting my daily activities and life,” he wrote. The request was again denied, once again citing the lack of inventory.
During this period, John was issued a disciplinary ticket after failing to hear an officer’s order, an incident that cost him his prison job.
John’s experience is echoed in survey responses from other people in IDOC custody obtained by TCR through a public records request.
One person reported waiting more than two years for glasses, dentures and cochlear implants. Another described a lack of basic accessibility equipment, including grab bars and a shower chair.
“They claim things such as ADA but disregard them,” the person wrote. “No handles anywhere, not in shower or toilet. No shower chair.”
Overrepresented in legal justice settings
John’s incident mirrors a larger pattern of people with disabilities experiencing disproportionate rates of involvement with criminal legal systems across the U.S.
In state and federal prisons, an estimated two-thirds of people report having at least one disability, according to a long-term study of more than 20,000 people in U.S. prisons.
People with disabilities who come from marginalized communities report disproportionately high arrest rates—for those who identify as Black and Latinx, the arrest rates before age 28 are 55 percent and 46 percent, respectively.
People who are Deaf and hard of hearing are three times more represented in jails than in the community, according to a Bureau of Justice statistics.
Illinois prisons fail to accommodate
Once in prison, people with disabilities are routinely denied access to Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) services and equal treatment, as well as subjected to poor treatment from untrained staff, according to a National Center for Access to Justice 50 state analysis.
A federal lawsuit filed Sept. 2 raises similar concerns about access for Deaf people in IDOC custody. Daniel Valenzuela, a Deaf man at Danville Correctional Center who primarily communicates in American Sign Language, alleges that IDOC blocks him from using the videophone capabilities on his tablet, while other people in custody can make calls from their housing units. Instead, he must rely on videophones outside his housing unit and during restricted hours, according to the complaint.
In a press release announcing the lawsuit, Rachel M. Weisberg, directing attorney at Disability Rights Advocates, said IDOC had an obligation to ensure Deaf people could use the expanded telephone program “on equal terms.”
“New technology cannot become another barrier for people with disabilities,” Weisberg said.
Sophia Lau, an attorney at Equip for Equality, added that IDOC “already has the technology” to make communication possible and that the lawsuit asks the department to “stop blocking Deaf people from using it.”
What needs to change
The 2018 settlement already laid out many of the changes needed to improve access for Deaf and hard of hearing people in IDOC custody. It required the department to identify people with hearing loss, assess their individual communication needs and provide accommodations such as hearing aids, interpreters, accessible notification systems and communication technology. It also required ADA training for staff.
But the settlement itself has been the subject of enforcement proceedings. In 2020, a federal judge found that IDOC had failed to comply with requirements governing audiological evaluations and extended the court’s oversight of the agreement.
For people with disabilities in IDOC custody, advocates say meaningful access requires more than having accommodations available on paper. Requests must be addressed promptly, equipment must be functional and staff must understand how to provide accommodations when people need them.
The question now is not whether IDOC knows what accommodations are required. It is whether people in its custody can actually get them.
Action: What the new Illinois law requires
Illinois’ new disability-access law, effective Aug. 7, 2026, requires IDOC to create more structured processes for accommodating incarcerated people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in education, employment and vocational programs. The law requires multiple ways for people to disclose disabilities, information about accommodations and grievance rights, staff training, and tracking of accommodation requests and their outcomes.
For John, the gap is striking: his disability was identified, his needed accommodations were documented, and he repeatedly requested them, yet he waited months without receiving them.
The important caveat: The new law does not establish these requirements for every disability or every accommodation. Its provisions specifically address people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and access to education, employment and vocational programs.