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{{ Big Muddy River Correctional Center }}
Opened: March 1993
Capacity: 1,152
Level 3: High Medium-Security Adult Male
Average Daily Population: 1,860
Total Average Daily Population: 1,860
Average Age: 34
Average Annual Cost Per Inmate: $16,293.00
Business Mail:
251 N. Illinois Highway 37
P.O. Box 1000
Ina, IL 62846
Phone: (618) 437-5300
Inmate Mail:
251 N. Illinois Highway 37
P.O. Box 900
Ina, IL 62846
The Big Muddy River Correctional Center is a Level 3, high medium-security facility, located one mile south of Ina in Jefferson County. The facility opened in March 1993 and designed to house 1,152 offenders. However, the average daily offender population is currently approximately 1,860.
The facility consists of a total of 20 buildings, which comprise more than 39,000 square feet. The living units consist of four X-type housing units, one Receiving and Orientation Unit, one Segregation Unit and a 15-bed Health Care Unit. The facility sits on a 78-acre site, with 38 acres being enclosed by fencing.
Rend Lake College, under contract with the Illinois Department of Corrections, offers a wide variety of college-level vocational and baccalaureate courses and programs at the Big Muddy River Correctional Center in Ina and the Pinckneyville Correctional Center. This includes both certificate and degree programs. All courses are taught at the prison site. These classes are not open to the general public.
{ Big Muddy Misc }
"And the band plays on: Patronage in state government? It's business as usual"
Julie Wilkerson doesn't like to toot her own horn.
Less than two years ago, Wilkerson was earning slightly less than $40,000 a year as a band director and associate music professor at Rend Lake College, a two-year school near Carbondale. Today, she earns $65,000 a year as an assistant warden at Big Muddy River Correctional Center in Ina. Not bad, considering that Wilkerson had apparently never drawn a prison paycheck before the Department of Corrections hired her in the summer of 2004.
Wilkerson isn't eager to talk about her meteoric rise in the field of corrections. "It would be best to direct your inquiry to the office of communications," Wilkerson answers when asked several times to comment on her hiring. If she got clearance to speak with a reporter from the central office, would she comment? "It would be best to direct your inquiry to the office of communications," she repeats.
After checking, Dede Short, corrections spokeswoman, says she found no evidence that Wilkerson had ever held a prison job before she became an assistant warden. What other experience or education does Wilkerson have that qualified her to become a top administrator in a prison filled with murderers, rapists, and other dangerous felons?
IDOC / Big Muddy River Correctional Center
BMRCC Limited Scope Compliance Audit (2002)
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"Failing Grade: The decline in educational opportunities for Illinois prison inmates" / Campaign for Responsible Priorities
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"The Vicious Circle: Race, Prison, Jobs, and Community in Chicago, Illinois and the Nation" / Chicago Urban League
"A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in Illinois" / The Justice Policy Center
