The federal Bureau of Prisons is closing the notorious Special Management Unit at Thomson penitentiary in Illinois, after frequent reports of violence and abuse.
An investigation last year by NPR and The Marshall Project found that Thomson had quickly become one of the deadliest federal prisons, with five suspected homicides and two suspected suicides since the unit opened in 2019. The report also uncovered conditions that stoked violence, where volatile prisoners were locked down together in small cells for nearly 24 hours a day, often despite repeated warning signs.
