EXAMINE ILLINOIS PRISON NEEDS, WHAT IT CAN AFFORD

Stung by what he calls the governor's "middle-of-the-night decision" to
close Pontiac Correctional Center, no bother given to the repercussions,
State Sen. Dan Rutherford began pushing legislation requiring a state
commission to analyze the cost savings, and the local economic impact, any
time a state facility of significant size is targeted for closure.

Local hearings would be required.

The Legislature would get a report. It is no coincidence that
Rutherford represents Pontiac or that the other major sponsor,
Republican Senate leader Frank Watson, represents Vandalia, home to
the prison Gov. Rod Blagojevich suggested closing in February. Pontiac
came up nearly four months later, when the Legislature was getting
balky about Vandalia. The bait and switch was reminiscent of 2002,
when Gov. George Ryan announced four days before the legislative
session ended that he'd changed his mind about shuttering Vienna -
where protests were plentiful - and would be going after Sheridan
Correctional Center instead. Its supporters had no time to deflect
what hit them. It is no wonder legislators from small prison towns get
up in arms when the state threatens to lock the gates for good. In
many of these communities, prisons are the major employers.

Shutting them down can cause an economic crisis and personal
disasters, while turning friendly little Main Streets into ghost avenues.

A quick and therefore inexact look by the state's Economic and Fiscal
Commission said Pontiac's closure would cost the community $40 million.

While it is true that the state cannot and should not maintain
institutions it no longer needs, it is also true that the effects on a
locale deserve some consideration. This is especially so when, as was
the case with Pontiac, Vienna, Vandalia and Sheridan, the governors
appear to be picking up a rifle, spinning three times before firing,
and seeing which town gets hit. If it happens to be represented by a
member of the wrong party, a misfire can be declared and the gun reloaded.

While closing Pontiac, Blagojevich would have opened a new and vacant
prison at Thomson, claiming efficiencies there would save the state a
couple of million bucks. In the end, Rutherford got Pontiac spared,
Watson saved Vandalia, and residents of Illinois communities now will
get some assurance that future closures will be looked at more
thoroughly than those in the past. That still doesn't answer the
fundamental question: How many prisons does Illinois need?

A quarter-century ago the Legislature decided its prisons were
severely overcrowded and began building new ones at the rate of nearly
one a year. It also started passing tougher sentencing laws, including
life imprisonment after the third offense and longer mandatory
sentences. But the state's finances couldn't support the rate of growth.

Two new prisons and two work camps have yet to open, two are only
partially so and construction of two others has been halted.

Along with Sheridan (which is supposed to be reopened with a
drug-treatment focus), Joliet Penitentiary, two work camps (Hanna City
was one), a boot camp and four transitional centers have closed.

Two prisons and the youth center at St. Charles were spared this year.
These closures belie the fact that the Illinois prison system holds 53
percent more inmates than its rated capacity.

Pontiac is 500 overboard alone.

In the last nine months four inmates have been killed by other
prisoners, three by their cellmates.

Double-bunking isn't just an inconvenience; it's dangerous.

Before Illinois closes, or opens, any more prisons, it desperately
needs a top-to-bottom study of what it has, what it needs and what the
options are for dealing with the mismatch.

The study should include alternative sentences for those who don't
need to be in prison, increased use of treatment for drug offenders
and a rethinking of when life imprisonment makes sense - and when it
does not.

The way the laws now stand, the state can't afford to close prisons.

The way the money stands, it can't afford to keep them open either.

And that's a problem.