I’ve had some disconcerting experiences in the 12 years I’ve been taking photographs in Illinois prisons. I’ll never forget the day I was caught in the middle of a riot at Menard and got shoved into a cell for my own safety. Or the time I was threatened at Stateville by gang members. But I hadn’t remembered my strange encounter with Patrick Page until I heard about the closing of the Joliet Correctional Center, a pre-Civil War structure built by convicts, using massive limestone blocks cut from nearby quarries. The medieval fortress-style prison shut its doors in mid-February, but the Reception and Classification Center, which routes convicts to various state penitentiaries, will remain open until next fall. Its operations will then move to the nearby Stateville Correctional Center.
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A few years earlier, I’d shared a couple of beers with Page and a mutual friend, Little Johnny, who had just been released from Cook County Jail after doing 90 days for breaking and entering. Aside from being a thief, Little Johnny was a pretty nice guy–as long as you didn’t leave anything around to tempt him. But Page was different, with wild hair and predatory eyes, sizing me up and down, looking, it seemed, for a vulnerable spot.
