Major Incidents
In the 1970s, a significant increase in inmate population, not only at Menard but also around the country, may have been the cause of two incidents during the time. In May 1973, thirty-eight inmates took over the commissary and held a guard hostage for sixteen hours. In May 1974, sixty inmates held four guards hostage, this time demanding congregation rights in the prison yard and several changes in administrative procedures.
In March 1994, Menard was in the news when 24-year-old Michael Blucker took the state to court after contracting HIV when in the prison. Blucker stated that prison staff helped gang members rape him. Although the juries found the staff not to be liable, the case uncovered problems of sexual assault and gang activities within the prison.
Read more about this topic: Menard Correctional Center
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or incidents:
“As a novelist, I cannot occupy myself with “characters,” or at any rate central ones, who lack panache, in one or another sense, who would be incapable of a major action or a major passion, or who have not a touch of the ambiguity, the ultimate unaccountability, the enlarging mistiness of persons “in history.” History, as more austerely I now know it, is not romantic. But I am.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)