Death, Illness, and Notification in Illinois Prisons

There are two directions a death or a serious illness can travel through a prison wall, and a family usually only thinks about it when it is already happening.

One direction is from the outside in. Someone in the family is dying or has died, and you need the prison to tell your incarcerated person, and you are wondering whether he can be there for it. The other direction is from the inside out. Your person is the one who is sick, or who has died in custody, and you are trying to find out what happened and what you are allowed to do. This article walks both directions for Illinois, run by the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC).

I am going to tell you something up front, because I learned it the hard way and I do not want it to land on you cold. An approval that has been granted is not the same as your person being there. Those are two different things, and the gap between them is where families get hurt.

When the Death or Illness Is on the Outside

If someone in the family is gravely ill or has died and you want your incarcerated person notified, the channel is the facility, usually through the chaplain or the person's counselor. Call the institution, explain the emergency, and be ready to provide verification, such as the funeral home's information or a death certificate for a death, or a hospital or physician confirmation for an imminent death.

Notification is the part that tends to work. Whether your person can leave the prison to be there is a separate and much harder question.

Attending a Funeral or Visiting a Critically Ill Relative in Illinois

Illinois has a furlough framework in its administrative rules (20 Illinois Administrative Code 530) that specifically allows furloughs to visit seriously ill close relatives or to attend the funerals of close relatives. Read these as the realities, not as promises.

These furloughs are escorted, and the family usually pays. Illinois rules state that all critical illness or funeral furloughs are escorted furloughs, and that the cost of the employee's time and transportation, plus the committed person's expenses, are to be paid to the facility by the committed person or a designated party outside the facility whenever possible. So this is a guarded trip, and the bill generally lands on the family.

It is discretionary and security-driven. Approval rests with the facility's chief administrative officer, and turns on custody level, security, and the verified relationship. People confined for psychiatric treatment are limited to escorted medical, critical illness, or funeral furloughs, and a life sentence and security concerns weigh heavily against approval.

Now the part I promised you.

I was told I had a five-hour furlough to attend my mother's funeral. I was told to get dressed and wait for the escort. I got dressed. I waited. The escort never came. Word going around was that the warden had been moved or was on leave, and the assistant warden denied it. Nobody walked up to me with a form. The day just passed. What I got, in the end, was a free phone call.

I tell you that not to make you bitter before you start, but to make you smart. An approval that exists on paper is not a person standing at a graveside. Administrators change. Acting wardens reverse decisions. Escort details fall through. If you are pinning the family's grief on the hope that he will physically be there, you are building on sand. Plan the service around the family that can be there. If he makes it, that is a mercy. If he does not, you were not depending on it, and the grief is heavy enough without that.

Ask about a phone call or video at minimum. Even when a furlough is denied or impossible, the facility can usually allow a call. Ask the chaplain or counselor directly, and ask early.

When the Illness or Death Is on the Inside

The other direction is harder, because you have less control and the information comes slower. But Illinois has, on paper, one of the more usable medical release laws in the country, and families should know how to use it.

If your person is seriously ill in custody. Push for medical information, knowing that medical privacy rules limit what staff will share unless the incarcerated person has authorized release of information to you. Encourage your person, while able, to sign a release naming you. Illinois also has a medical furlough mechanism, recommended by a Department physician or the Department Medical Director and approved by the chief administrative officer, that can move a terminally ill or limited-mobility person to a healthcare facility or a home setting that can meet their needs, with a multidisciplinary team assessing public safety risk and life-sentenced people excluded. But the route most families should learn about is medical release.

The Illinois medical release law, the Joe Coleman Act. Illinois has a medical release statute, the Joe Coleman Medical Release Act (730 Illinois Compiled Statutes 5/3-3-14), named for a veteran who died of cancer in prison while awaiting clemency. It allows an incarcerated person to seek early release if they are terminally ill, meaning an irreversible and incurable condition likely to cause death within 18 months, or if they are medically incapacitated, including a condition diagnosed to cause medical incapacity within six months or incapacity that arose after sentencing. Several features make this worth pursuing:

Who can apply. The application can be filed not just by the incarcerated person, but also by a prison official, a treating medical professional, or a family member such as a spouse, parent, guardian, grandparent, aunt or uncle, sibling, or adult child. That means you, as family, can start it.

Who decides, and how fast. The Prisoner Review Board, a separate state body, decides. A three-member panel rules by simple majority, and the statute calls for a decision within 90 days of a completed application. A person granted medical release goes onto mandatory supervised release.

What the Board weighs. The Board considers the diagnosis and likelihood of recovery, the cost of care if the person stays incarcerated, the impact on the prison's ability to provide medical care, any danger to a specific person, victim statements, and whether the condition was disclosed at sentencing.

An honest caution. This law is strong on paper, but in practice the Prisoner Review Board has denied a large share of medical release requests, and people have waited a long time, sometimes months, just to be found medically qualified by prison staff before the Board even votes. Some have died waiting. The lesson is not to give up; it is to start immediately, file the application yourself if your person cannot, document the diagnosis, get an attorney if you can, and keep pushing, because delay is the enemy.

If your person dies in custody. Illinois has a Reporting of Deaths in Custody Act and IDOC procedures for notifying the family. The family is notified using the emergency contact your person has on record, which is exactly why that contact must be correct now. The Prisoner Review Board's Victim Notification Unit handles certain notifications as well. Make sure your person's listed contact is someone reachable who will actually tell the rest of the family.

Autopsy and the coroner. Illinois uses a county coroner or medical examiner system, and a death in custody is investigated. The coroner or medical examiner for the county where the death occurred determines whether an autopsy is needed and controls the timing of releasing the body, so the family does not automatically receive the body immediately. Cook County, for example, has a Medical Examiner; most other counties have a coroner.

Claiming the body. The next of kin can claim the remains, generally by working with a funeral home that coordinates release from the coroner or medical examiner once the examination allows. Make your intention to claim your person known promptly, and be clear about who the legal next of kin is, because disputes between family members slow everything down. If the family cannot afford a funeral, ask the funeral home and the county about indigent burial assistance, because unclaimed remains are eventually handled by the county.

What Families Can Do Before a Crisis

Most of the pain in these situations comes from decisions that were never made in calm times. A few things you can do now, while no one is dying:

Make sure your person has the correct emergency contact and next of kin recorded with the IDOC, and keep it current. This determines who the prison calls.

Have your person sign a release of information naming the family members who should be allowed to speak with medical staff. Without it, privacy rules will keep you in the dark.

Learn your person's custody level, because it heavily affects whether a critical illness or funeral furlough is realistic, and remember the family generally pays the escort costs.

If your person has a terminal or seriously incapacitating condition, do not wait. You can file a Joe Coleman Act medical release application yourself, so get the diagnosis documented, file early, and consider an attorney.

Keep the funeral home's contact information ready, both to notify your person of an outside death and to claim your person if they die inside.

State Resources

Illinois Department of Corrections: contact the institution directly; use the IDOC website for facility, chaplain, and counselor contacts, and for medical release application materials.

Illinois Prisoner Review Board: for Joe Coleman Act medical release and clemency.

County Coroner or Medical Examiner: for cause of death, autopsy, and release of remains in the county where the death occurred.

Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records: for certified copies of the death certificate.

Illinois 211: dial 2-1-1 for grief support, funeral assistance resources, and counseling referrals.