Shannon Heffernan
Reporter, Criminal Justice
Her reporting has earned her a Third Coast International Audio Festival Award, a National Murrow Award for best writing and a PRINDI for best writing, as well as awards from the Illinois AP and Chicago Headline Club. She worked on the 16 Shots podcast, which was a Scripps Howard finalist. Her work has been heard on local and national programming, including This American Life.
Shannon also writes short fictional stories and has been published Hobart, The Indiana Review and The Columbia Review, where she won the 2016 prize for fiction.
Stories by Shannon Heffernan
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Concerns for safety rise as oversight of Illinois prison mental health care ends
An independent expert who has monitored the mental health care was terminated reducing the transparency around an often failing system.
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Shielded from public view, misconduct by corrections staff in Illinois prisons received scant discipline
Eighteen Illinois corrections workers abused prisoners or used excessive force, according to state investigations. But they all kept their jobs.
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Episode 7: Where Life is Precious, Life is Precious
Prisons helped rural towns, while Black communities in Chicago paid a heavy price. Now, rumors swirl that parts of Pontiac prison may close.
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Episode 6: The Prison Sweepstakes
In the 1980s Illinois leaders held a competition, where rural towns competed to “win” prisons and the jobs that come with them.
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Episode 5: The Trial
Two Illinois prison guards were tried for beating Larry Earvin to death. We try to make sense of the trial and what it says about prisons.
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Episode 4: No Justice in Politics
A man goes into prison with a 7 year sentence. But ends up getting 97 more years. How does that happen? And what do small town politics have to do with it?
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Episode 3: The Major and Her Crew
State investigators interrogate a high-ranking prison guard, who is accused of coordinating attacks on prisoners.
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Episode 2: Us and Them
Two Black women took mental health jobs at one of Illinois’ toughest prisons. What happened when they reported what they saw behind the wall.
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Episode 1: The Blind Spot
Men in an Illinois prison said they were beaten in a spot with no security cameras. But no one took action, until someone died.
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Preview the New Season of WBEZ’s Motive
Small towns. Big walls. A good place to hide things. Stories and scandals from prisons in rural America.
