Capital Punishment
By 1931, Menard was one of three sites in which executions were carried out by electrocution in Illinois. Between 1928 and 1962, the electric chair was used 18 times here for those sentenced to death in the southern counties of the state. The state's other electrocutions were carried out at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill and at the Cook County Jail in Chicago.
Prior to the January 11, 2003 commutation of death row sentences, male death row inmates were housed in Menard, Pontiac, and Tamms correctional centers. After the commutations, only Pontiac continued to hold death row prisoners.
Read more about this topic: Menard Correctional Center
Famous quotes containing the words capital punishment, capital and/or punishment:
“Like cellulite creams or hair-loss tonics, capital punishment is one of those panaceas that isn’t. Only it costs a whole lot more.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“We make needless ado about capital punishment,—taking lives, when there is no life to take.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What will be left of the power of example if it is proved that capital punishment has another power, and a very real one, which degrades men to the point of shame, madness, and murder?”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)