Posted: 6/25/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Aaron Facemire Illinois State Senator Dan Rutherford, R-Pontiac, speaks at the Decatur Correctional Center in Decatur, Ill., on Tuesday. Rutherford and Christine Redogno, R-Lemont, discussed the possible closures of Illinois prisons.

Illinois state Sens. Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, and Dan Rutherford, R-Pontiac, held a press conference outside of the Decatur Correctional Center Tuesday afternoon to urge Gov. Blagojevich to enact an executive order on a proposed Senate amendment to place a moratorium on closing correctional facilities and create a panel to determine a five-year plan evaluating the Illinois system.

The planned closures include the Pontiac Correctional Center in Rutherford's district, which he said came as a surprise as both he and Radogno had toured Pontiac as a possible facility for inmates to transfer to when the Stateville Correctional Center was supposed to close. Since the announcement, Rutherford said there has been an economic downturn in his district.

"I mean, we're talking about 600 positions at the Pontiac facility, plus suppliers and the contractors and the vendors and so forth," Rutherford said. "If we had more bed space than we had inmates then perhaps there would be some logic to it, but we don't."

The decision is not finalized, however, as closures must be approved through a specific process laid out in the Facility Closure Act. The act requires several steps, including an economic impact statement, a public hearing and a review by the legislature. A final decision would most likely be announced in September, although Radogno believes that closures would be determined to have a negative impact and would not be allowed for such reasons.

"When you offset the savings by people that will be out of work, not contributing on income tax, not spending money on sales tax, I don't think that you're going to net out any savings and, in the process, you will devastate communities," Radogno said.

In addition to economic issues, the senators said the panel would explore broader issues such as overcrowding in Illinois prisons.

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