At least ten Illinois county jails that weren’t reporting their use of restraint chairs to a state monitoring unit began doing so after an Illinois Answers Project investigation revealed jails were dramatically underreporting incidents. Three other jails that were restraining people for long periods have since reported declines in restraint-chair use.
The multi-part investigation, which was published starting in 2024, led to better oversight by the state’s jails-monitoring unit. It has also been cited in federal lawsuits and a new law-enforcement training program.
Under Illinois state rules, jail staff are only allowed to restrain a person in a chair as a last resort. Jail officials claim they use the devices in emergency situations when detained people are a danger to themselves or others. But Illinois Answers found jails statewide had restrained people more than a thousand times a year between 2019 and 2023, often in ways that violated local policies and lasted longer than manufacturers recommend. Some people were immobilized in chairs for days.
The investigation found that only half of all incidents jails logged internally were being reported to the state. Staff at Cook County Jail used the devices nearly 900 times over five years and never reported it to the Jail and Detention Standards Unit (JDSU) within the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) as required under state rules. Champaign County also failed to report dozens of incidents.
As a result of the investigation, the JDSU began citing facilities in annual inspections for failing to report such incidents. Jails in Cook, Champaign and other counties started reporting their use of restraint chairs, and, in the years that followed, reports of other extraordinary events also increased statewide as awareness about reporting requirements spread. The average number of reports fell statewide last year.
Cook County Jail reported 31 restraint incidents in 2024 and 2025, a dozen of which specifically mentioned the use of a chair, according to records obtained from the state. In a statement, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said it had amended its restraint-chairs policy in 2024 to require that any use must first be approved by executive-level staff.
“This has led to a reduction in the use of restraint chairs, but they remain available for use in situations where they are necessary to protect the health and safety of individuals in custody and our staff,” the office said.
Cook County Jail also significantly increased reports of suicide attempts, serious injuries and forced medication following Illinois Answers’ investigation. But by 2025, the jail’s reporting spike had largely subsided, with only a few categories remaining above pre-investigation levels. The average number of reports each month followed a similar trend outside of Cook County as well.
Statewide, reporting increased in the months following Illinois Answers’ investigation, then began to fall. It’s unclear how many incidents at jails across Illinois continue to go unreported.
Restraint-chair use declined in the most extreme jails
When county jails report restraint-chair incidents to the JDSU, they often don’t say how long staff kept people in the chairs. Illinois Answers’ investigation identified at least 1,300 cases in which people were restrained for more than two hours, with at least 70 incidents exceeding 10 hours, the upper limit set by one leading chair manufacturer.
The majority of extremely prolonged incidents happened in Madison and Peoria counties, where people were in and out of restraint chairs for days on end, according to an Illinois Answers analysis of county records. Multiple times in Coles County, jail staff restrained a person in a chair, attached a stun cuff and administered violent electrical shocks while watching from another room.
Illinois Answers followed up with those three counties, requesting additional records on restraint chair use in 2024 and 2025 to determine if the jails had changed their practices.
The counties continued restraining people in chairs, but less frequently, records show. While Peoria County documented an average of more than 70 incidents a year between 2019 and 2023, that dropped to an average of 15 in the subsequent two years. Coles County went from averaging nearly 44 in one year to just five another year, and reported none at all in 2025.
The reported declines accurately reflect fewer incidents, according to Coles County Sheriff Kent Martin. “Our use has gone down considerably,” he said.
Madison County went from reporting an annual average of 19 incidents during the initial five-year period to about four in the subsequent two years, according to records obtained from the state. The county denied Illinois Answers’ public-records request for internal incident reports; a review of the denial by the Attorney General’s Office is pending.
Illinois Answers also assessed changes to how long people were restrained following our investigation. In 2024, Peoria County Jail staff continued to restrain people for prolonged periods — more than 12 hours in some cases, and as long as three days in one incident, county records show. But the average duration dropped the following year, when the longest period jail staff restrained a person was seven hours.
In Coles County, staff consistently released detained people from restraint chairs within two hours, county records show. The county said it doubled the amount of time a mental-health professional is available at the jail each week, increased training on restraint chairs and approved a new policy on observing potentially suicidal people.
Martin said the jail also increased staffing, installed a padded cell and sent some detained people to Kankakee County Jail, which is piloting a program with the Illinois Department of Human Services to provide mental healthcare to people who have been deemed unfit for trial and are awaiting a state hospital bed.
“Instead of having somebody in a cell here that we just can’t do anything with, it’s a way to get people into a setting with more services that they need,” Martin said. “We have people in our jails who really would benefit more from being in a mental health or psychiatric facility rather than a county jail.”
All of those approaches have helped reduce the jail’s use of restraint chairs, which means reduced risk for both detained people and staff, according to Martin.
“It’s been a long, drawn-out process, but that’s just the way it is,” he said. “These things just take time to accomplish. I feel good that we’re making progress and moving in the right direction.”
Investigation cited in federal lawsuits and calls for reform
At least two federal civil complaints have cited the investigation’s findings. Illinois Answers previously reported on Travis Braden, who was strapped down repeatedly over the course of three days in Williamson County. Braden’s lawsuit cited the investigation, and he received a $27,500 settlement from the county.
A pending wrongful death suit in Cook County also cites Illinois Answer’s findings. Cory Ulmer, a 41-year old man with bipolar disorder, was arrested for violating the terms of his pretrial release in the summer of 2024. Officers at Cook County Jail beat him, injected him with sedatives and briefly placed him in a restraint chair; he fell unconscious and was later pronounced dead at a hospital, according to a lawsuit filed by his stepfather. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
“The Cook County Sheriff has deliberately allowed the widespread and unconstitutional practices of insufficient body-worn camera use, insufficient reporting, and overbroad and punitive restraint chair use to continue for decades,” the lawsuit states. “The higher-ranking officials within the Cook County Sheriff are aware of this custom and have defended its existence.”
Asked about Ulmer’s death, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) said it “aggressively investigates and holds staff accountable for actions that endanger the health and safety of others.”
The office said it requested an independent investigation by Illinois State Police and an administrative investigation by the Sheriff’s Office of Professional Review, which recommended firing two employees and giving lengthy suspensions to six more. According to the CCSO, the officers remain employed amid an ongoing “disciplinary grievance process outlined in their collective bargaining agreements and are currently going through that process.”
In the wake of Illinois Answers’ investigative series, multiple Illinois lawmakers called for systemic reform of restraint chair use, including stricter regulation and oversight. And the investigation spurred conversations among the Illinois Correctional Association and National Disability Rights Network, the nonprofit membership organization for disability rights agencies.
The series and a corresponding documentary produced by KMBC-TV also catalyzed a new program designed to train officers on how to use restraint chairs safely. The Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths (IPICD), a law-enforcement training institute, launched the program in March, and officers from the U.S., Australia and Canada attended the first live virtual session.
“Hopefully, through that training, it will avoid some of these tragic deaths that have occurred,” IPICD President John Peters told KMBC-TV.
For more information on the use of restraint chairs in Illinois county jails, see our zine in English and in Spanish. This story was made possible by a grant from The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
