VANDALIA – A southern Illinois prison has opened its doors to journalists in the wake of a watchdog group’s 2011 report of overcrowding, flooding and crumbling and unsanitary basement dormitories.

The minimum-security Vandalia Correctional Center allowed journalists in Friday for a close look at the facility’s expanding vocational programs for inmates, something that even watchdog group The John Howard Association noted as a positive in its otherwise troubling report from its June 2011 visit.

The Illinois Department of Corrections is mired in a tumultuous period.