Illinois Answers Project

3 weeks ago | illinoisanswers.org | Grace Hauck

The Illinois Answers Project’s “Strapped Down” series investigated the overuse, misuse and abuse of restraint chairs in county jails across Illinois. The investigation revealed that, from 2019 to 2023: In Illinois, jails restrained people in chairs on average more than 1,000 times a year. Jails often restrained people for longer than recommended and failed to provide timely mental health and medical attention.

3 weeks ago | illinoisanswers.org | Grace Hauck

The knock came around midnight. The officers told Carty Holland that his son, Andrew, had died at the county jail. “They didn’t tell me how he passed,” Holland said. “The ugliness of it came later on.”Andrew, a 36-year-old man with schizophrenia, had been found unfit to stand trial and was at San Luis Obispo County Jail awaiting transfer to the county’s psychiatric health facility in 2017 when staff observed him hitting himself in the face and strapped him down to a chair in an observation cell.

3 weeks ago | illinoisanswers.org | Grace Hauck

The “Strapped Down” series investigated the use of restraint chairs in county jails. The Illinois Answers Project revealed that Illinois jails use the devices on average more than a thousand times a year and sometimes restrained people with mental illnesses for hours to days on end. For the final stories in the series, we’re examining how three other states have addressed the use and misuse of restraint chairs.

3 weeks ago | illinoisanswers.org | Grace Hauck

Two Iowa jails have made reforms after an ombudsman report found the facilities were restraining people with mental illnesses in chairs for long periods of time. Webster County Jail provided staff with additional training and upgraded its systems for surveillance, documentation and tracking policy changes. Boone County built a padded cell as an alternative to restraint.

3 weeks ago | illinoisanswers.org | Grace Hauck

Pittsburgh, Pa. — Jason Porter takes comfort in knowing restraint chairs have been banned from Allegheny County Jail. He was strapped down in the controversial device for six hours without food or water in 2020 in what was one of more than three hundred uses of a restraint chair at the jail that year. His experience became another point in a public dataset published online by the state.