The Uptown People’s Law Center is looking for a new leader. Those are some big
shoes to fill.

Alan Mills will retire as executive director when a successor is named, the firm
announced this week. Mills came to the UPLC is 1979 as a law school intern and
named executive director in 1979 after the death of former director Belinda Belcher.
The media release described Mills as a “transformative leader.” Transformative indeed.
What Mills and his team helped transform during his decades with the firm is no less
than a sea change in conditions in Illinois prisons. The UPLC filed lawsuits and fought
to improve mental health and medical care for the state’s prisoners. He tackled juvenile
parole issues and reform of the parole revocation process.
The closure of the Tamms Supermax prison in southern Illinois, notorious for its ill-
treatment of inmates, came after Mills’ victory in Westefer v Snyder.
Anyone who follows the maddeningly slow legal process of the lawsuits filed to bring
medical and mental health care to a constitutional level knows what a battle this work
entails. Decades have passed and the battles continue. What seemed major progress in
the Rasho v Jeffreys lawsuit to improve mental health care for 12,000 inmates was
reversed in a ruling by a reviewing court.
To be clear, the conditions detailed in reports by court-appointed monitors are nothing
any of us would want to live in, or see our loved ones housed in. The Department of
Corrections is moving ahead with plans to close some of the worse prisons and build
new facilities, but that takes time, and the toxic water, rodents and inadequate medical
facilities will remain part of prison life until the doors open on new prisons.
In my decades writing about prison conditions, with a focus on mental health, I heard
comments from critics who felt the work by Mills and other dedicated lawyers to bring
prisons up to minimum standards of care was a waste of time and resources. Poor
housing conditions are part of the punishment and healthcare is for people on the
outside, they said.

Lost in the discussion is the fact that the majority of people behind bars will return to
their communities. Sending someone home with an untreated mental illness, made
worse in many cases by lack of healthcare and extended periods solitary confinement,
helps no one.

Mills told me he will continue his support of the prisoners’ rights work of UPLC. I hope
he also has the opportunity to spend more time in the woods, away from the courtroom.
He has earned it.