Browse Exhibits (5 total)
Abuses at Rushville
Curated in the Abuses at Rushville exhibition are grievances about harmful sleeping conditions, verbal and physical harassment, transphobia, and homophobia. Conditions at Rushville are harshly punitive. Complaints and appeals for help from higher-ups and therapists go ignored, or else trigger retaliation. “I am being attacked and I fear for my life” as a result of filing a complaint against a staff member, one resident writes to a judge. Another resident writes of constant harassment from staff, with “compliance shakedowns,” homophobic slurs, and being written up for romantic/sexual intimacies with other residents.
For many of the residents who contributed to the archive, Rushville seems like a death sentence. The lists of deaths in Rushville that residents keep and exhibited in Abuses at Rushville attests that for many, it is. Residents write that Rushville’s death rate is twice that of the national average, and that staff are callous in the face of these resident deaths. Materials in this collection paint a picture of Rushville as a psychologically damaging and prison-like place antithetical to therapeutic growth.
Obstacles to Rehabilitation & Release
Rushville claims to offer state-of-the-art, evidence-backed treatment intended to cure and reintegrate residents into civil life. This exhibition highlights resident letters, pamphlets, and article clippings that diagnose Rushville’s failure to make good on these promises. Residents relate the fact of indefinite commitment to several interrelated factors, including misdiagnosis, politicized advancement through treatment, and profit motives.
Letters from the Inside
This exhibit showcases the personal letters sent to the Civil Commitment Working Group’s outside members from individuals on the inside, detailing the challenges of civil commitment and expressing motivation to organize against it.
Rushville in the Words of Those Confined There
Newsletters from Rushville
This exhibit showcases the newsletters compiled by residents of Rushville, the Illinois Department of Human Services-run facility where individuals deemed “sexually violent persons” by the state are confined.
These are organized by year. Click through to read the residents' criticisms, opinions and pleas.