Mansfield Reformatory is a cold, dark, foreboding place to be sure. Peeling paint, rusting metal bars, standing water, old chairs. Strange smells. Hollow noises. Six tiers of tiny, two-person cells. It’s hard to imagine the horrible living conditions inflicted upon incarcerated humans there for almost 100 years.

In 1930 a fire killed more than 300 prisoners.

A 1957 riot led guards to put six prisoners each into only 20 solitary confinement cells for a month.

Mansfield was built between 1886 and 1910. It’s hard to believe it remained open until 1990.

And yet…I don’t think the conditions of current Illinois prisons are much better.

My dad visited Mansfield Reformatory years ago, famously where the Shawshank Redemption was filmed, and intrigued me with some spooky encounters, so I always wanted to visit.

In the Warden’s quarters, not available this time due to construction, he said he heard footsteps where Warden Arthur Lewis Glattke’s wife was "accidentally killed" by his loaded gun when it fell off a shelf in a closet.

The Chapel is upstairs from the quarters. My dad said said he was walking up the stairs to the Chapel from the Warden’s quarters and saw shadows moving on the door. He walked quickly up and into the Chapel to see and there was no one there.

On our way back from visiting family in Ohio, we stopped at Mansfield and took a self-guided tour.

No paranormal activity this time. Too many visitors drove away the ghosts, I think. Also, I think too much emphasis on Shawshank.

I felt the gravity of the place, though.

In the coming months, I hope to visit two of Illinois’ prisons for a much different reason. In March, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a $900M Plan to demolish and rebuild Stateville and Logan prisons, with advocacy groups hoping for an overhaul of the state’s criminal justice system that could be an opportunity for Illinois to become an example for other states across the country.

From The Women’s Justice Institute: “The closure of Logan Correctional Center, as it stands today, not only represents an opportunity to end its legacy of harm, but an opportunity to leverage the dialogue around next steps by looking at ways to continuing reducing the footprint of the system in the design process, explore harm reduction strategies that minimize separation of families with regionalization, acknowledge the disproportionate impact of complex trauma and gender-based violence among incarcerated women; and by building broader, community-based networks of gender-responsive services. This is a critical moment that could dramatically impact the trajectory of women’s mass incarceration, and time for communities to come together with this administration to reimagine systems and real justice with/for women with lived experience, their children and families.”

Mansfield could serve as a better history lesson and less of a Hollywood tourism spot for sure.