>> A suburban Chicago prison has seen more than 70 fires in the last 3 years marking 3 per month in 2025. the Jolly a treatment center was designed to provide intensive mental health care to inmates, not even a decade after after it opened its doors in 2017, conditions have reportedly declined.

A new report by the Marshall Project.

Details how the frequency of the prison's fires may have been desperate cries for help.

Joining us now is Shannon Heffernan, a reporter with the Marshall Project.

Shannon, thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much for having And we should also want our viewers at this discussion will include mention of self immolation and self-harm.

Shannon, first, tell give us a sense of what the joy of treatment center is intended to do.

You have the joy of treatment center was designed to provide care to people in Illinois Department of Corrections who have the highest mental health needs.

People with mental health needs are over represent.

>> And the Department of Corrections and when it first opened, you know, I heard from guys inside that they were really believed that what was being provided that they were getting therapy, that they were getting psychiatry, that they would getting time out of their cells.

And then that started to decline around 2020 and people became pretty desperate.

They report that they weren't getting therapy nearly as much as they needed it.

They reported trouble getting physical health care, too.

And one of the most difficult things for a lot of the guys that I heard from was that they were being kept in their cells for long stretches of time as their mental health deteriorate.

It and they do what they could to get attention.

wrote to officials they talked to officials and they just kept escalating what they did and they started setting these fires.

So in your reporting, you found at the amount of mental health treatment they were receiving.

You said decline to the point where they began self-harming setting fires to get any attention.

>> And you tell the story of Jason Stephens who 38 when he died from a fire that he set and we have a body of provided of the 9-1-1.

Call that was made by an officer at the prison after he set that fire in his cell.

Let's take a listen.

>> I want and see.

Hi, my name is off to her village early.

As you mentioned, the fire department year we had cell on fire.

I don't know what is actually set fire that's still on fire.

I we were able extinguish from what I can There's still a >> Rna like a vacuum that has been inmates immediately around around there away from it.

>> We're still dealing with the situation.

I can that.

>> Sharon, what happened?

So after he set this fire, he was left in his cell for nearly 30 minutes.

A smoke-filled sell.

Officers did go to the door of his cell.

The openness lot usually used to deliver food and they put a fire extinguisher and pepper spray inside.

But they didn't let him out.

>> And as speaker just want our audience to know, we're looking at video, we can see the flames inside his cell there.

Yes, and the fire fighters when they arrived, one of them reported that department employees did not tell them that Stephens was in the cell.

Eventually do let him out of the Southeast Asian on immediately tell they do eventually let him out of the cell and he goes to the prison gate and there the prison gate.

They don't let the ambulance out.

They're waiting for paperwork and for a correction officers to follow the ambulance to the hospital.

They're not immediately available in a way that that gate for around 28 minutes before the ambulance is finally let through that they're doing that Will Stephens in the back of the ambulance having Air Force.

was Long's on machines will really serious condition.

And then Stephens died 2 weeks later, OK?

And of course, we know that you found some records showing that the prison cell block slack, sprinklers, fire alarms.

>> Couldn't produce a fire evacuation plan.

Ioc have much say that all >> So the Illinois Department of Corrections responded that they care about the safety of people inside and the employees there, but they provided no answers to any of our questions.

We also reached out to the governor's office who just deferred to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

So we're really eager to answers from the Department Corrections.

But what they've done to fix basic things like the fire alarms or whether or not Great.

Great reporting from Shannon Heffernan.

Your team, of course.

Thank you for joining us and >> viewers can read that full