In 2022 and 2023, WLC and its partners conducted an 18-month investigation into the Special Management Unit (SMU) at USP Thomson and detailed more than 120 accounts of “extreme physical and psychological abuse” endured by residents. The BOP closed the SMU at Thomson on February 14, 2023.

After copies of the report were released to the public, Senator Durbin convened a Congressional BOP Oversight hearing and confronted Director Collette Peters directly on the instances of abuse at USP Thomson. Director Peters said that in her 30+ year corrections career, she had never seen a culture of abuse like the one in the SMU at USP Thomson.

Read the report here.