“Location, Location, Location": How Where a Prisoner is Housed Influences the Prison Disciplinary Process

This report on the Illinois Department of Corrections disciplinary process addresses three key findings derived from research conducted for a graduate thesis written by JHA staff during their candidacy for a degree of Master of Arts in Criminal Justice and Criminology at Loyola University Chicago.  The full thesis is also available below.

The research objective of the thesis was to gauge the extent to which Illinois’ prisons varied in the severity of disciplinary sanctions imposed upon a sample of prisoners found guilty of committing similar low-level, less serious prison rule violations. This research also sought to identify factors that were determinative of severity of disciplinary sanctions imposed upon prisoners after accounting for variance between prisons. (2020)