VIENNA (AP) – An Illinois prison that had been slammed by a watchdog as overcrowded and squalid was opened to reporters Friday, and the warden said he was confident that previous shortcomings, which he didn’t entirely discount, have been fixed.

The 2-hour tour of the minimum-security Vienna Correctional Center in deep southern Illinois comes just weeks after Gov. Pat Quinn’s office relented on a decision to block journalists from touring the state’s prisons. The visit was tightly controlled: The state’s top prison chief barred cameras of any kind during the walkthrough, insisting that allowing them would be a security issue.

“Quite honestly, some of these people [inmates] don’t want to be on camera,” Tony Godinez, the Illinois Department of Corrections director, told about a dozen reporters before the tour.