Capital Punishment
By 1931, Menard was one of three sites in which executions were carried out by electrocution in Illinois. Between 1928 and 1962, the electric chair was used 18 times here for those sentenced to death in the southern counties of the state. The state's other electrocutions were carried out at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill and at the Cook County Jail in Chicago.
Prior to the January 11, 2003 commutation of death row sentences, male death row inmates were housed in Menard, Pontiac, and Tamms correctional centers. After the commutations, only Pontiac continued to hold death row prisoners.
Read more about this topic: Menard Correctional Center
Famous quotes containing the words capital and/or punishment:
“In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“A poor widow, by the name of Baird, has a son in the Army that for some offence has been sentenced to serve a long time without pay, or at most, with very little pay. I do not like this punishment of withholding pay—it falls so very hard upon poor families.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)