Bond County Jail: An Insider's Perspective
My sister, Carrie Anderson, wrote the following from inside Bond County jail in Greenville, Illinois. Carrie sent the write-up to me in installments via CIDNET, a platform that allows incarcerated individuals to communicate with people outside. Carrie gave me the green light to edit what she sent and post it here. You can read her account of conditions inside the Southern Illinois jail below the following photo, which shows Carrie sitting next to my younger sister, Katy, who’s holding up a magazine featuring a story she and I co-authored; that longform piece contains Katy’s brief account of time spent inside the same jail where Carrie is currently confined. I’m seated next to Katy in the photo.
By Carrie Anderson with James Anderson
I’m inside Bond County (BoCo) jail without bond.
There’s mold everywhere. Walls leak water. Condiment packages protrude from the broken piece of plexiglass on an otherwise beautiful sky light.
A torn blanket from a suicide in the nineties remains tied to steal bars in here.
Five of us sleep on a ripped mat on a concrete floor in a cell block designed for two people. Title 20 of the administrative code in Illinois pertaining to jail cell detention and room space states that cells should be designed for a maximum of two detainees and requires a minimum of 50 square feet of space in each cell, though it also exempts facilities built before July 1980 from legal action from the state for failure to offer the latter.
As for food, people make a lot of money from the egregious prices of BoCo jail commissary items.
The meals they provide could be worse. We get two sugar doughnuts and cereal for breakfast, two deli sandwiches for lunch and a Banquet meal TV dinner in the evening. No shortage of carbs. We also get our choice of milk, coffee, tea, lemonade or Kool-Aid with meals.
When I was here in 2018-2019, I left with anemia and Vitamin D deficiency.
The latter shouldn’t surprise, given how important regular exposure to sunlight can be in maintaining healthy levels of the nutrient.
We get no time outside and no time for recreation, even though people remain jailed here for months.
One guy they jailed for a 48-hour hold still sits inside a BoCo jail cell 14 months later.
In California, where my brother has written about conditions inside Riverside County jails, Title 15 Minimum Standards For Local Detention Facilities, updated in January 2023, states that jails “will allow a minimum of three hours of exercise distributed over a period of seven days.”
The section on recreation and leisure time in Title 20 of the administrative code in Illinois germane to county jails requires facility construction designs submitted after publication of the standards to include an exercise room or yard for vigorous physical activity. It also states that detained individuals must “be allowed in the exercise area for no less than one hour per day unless the jail administrator determines that participation in such activity by a particular detainee or group is harmful or dangerous to the security or morale of the facility.”
I’m not sure courts would consider BoCo jail in compliance with that mandate.