A woman known as Jane Doe was awarded over $19 million by a federal jury for the sexual assaults she suffered at the hands of a prison counselor while at a downstate prison.
According to the account, the assaults began in 2016 when Jane Doe was assigned to a housing unit under the authority of counselor Richard Macleod. Macleod allowed her to use his office phone to call her daughter and subsequently took advantage of the situation with repeated sexual assaults during those meetings, according to Chicago Tribune. The assaults continued until May 2017, when the plaintiff was transferred to another facility. Fearing retribution, Jane Doe initially refrained from reporting Macleod's misconduct but eventually felt compelled to speak out, as reported by Law360. Despite this, proper investigative measures were ignored in favor of a more covert approach, indicating an alarming disregard within the prison system for the well-being of the incarcerated.
Jane Doe filed her federal lawsuit against several Logan Correctional Center personnel in 2018, during a time when dozens of allegations of sexual assault or harassment by Illinois Department of Corrections employees against incarcerated individuals were surfacing, as per Chicago Tribune. The jury awarded her $8 million in compensatory damages and more than $11 million in punitive damages, with defendants including Macleod, Todd Sexton, who was an internal affairs investigator at the prison during the initial allegations, and Margaret Burke, the prison's warden at the time of the alleged acts.
Historically, the Illinois Department of Corrections has faced a multitude of issues within its prisons. Auditor General reports revealed various deficiencies, which led to a federally mandated consent decree in 2019 to overhaul the health care system within the IDOC. This decree resulted from a 2010 lawsuit filed by prisoners alleging systemic problems leading to serious disease and even death for incarcerated people. However, federal monitors have still reported the prison system failing to provide adequate health care for its incarcerated population, with shortcomings including mistreatment of elderly inmates, severe doctor and nurse shortages, and poor record-keeping.
While the outcome of Jane Doe's case is a victory in giving voice and justice to a victim, it may not be enough to spark systemic change. As her attorney, Britt Cramer, told Law360, "I love what we were able to do for Jane Doe, but I think this should have a broader impact than that, and I hope the [U.S. Attorney General's] office, the police and investigators at every prison are taking notice of this and are going to do something about this system because it's unreal."
