|
|
| Prison-closure plan has Quinn losing favor in county he carried |
| By news-gazette.com - The Associated Press |
| Published: 07/02/2012 |
|
Illinois -- He noted that the area still is struggling to recover from devastating floods along the Mississippi River last year. Quinn announced his closure plans June 19 in a memo to state employees, letting them know they would soon get information on how layoffs will be handled. Quinn's move dismissed an earlier vote by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability — a panel of Illinois lawmakers — that the Tamms and Dwight prisons should be spared. The women's prison at Dwight employs 350 people. Together, the two facilities house about 1,400 inmates, and closing them will mean squeezing more inmates into the state's remaining prisons, which already are seriously overcrowded. But the state has been under pressure to close Tamms from activists who argue its security measures are inhumane, and legislators have had to make many painful spending decisions given the state's budget crisis. Quinn aides say the Tamms prison is half-empty and three times as expensive to run as other facilities. Quinn signed the new state budget Saturday, saying he would use money from the shuttered prisons to restore funding to the Department of Children and Family Services, the agency in charge of maintaining child welfare in the state. To do that, though, he'll need the legislature's approval. "The governor really cares about southern Illinois and appreciates the support he's gotten there, but we have to look at the entire state," said Kelly Kraft, Quinn's spokeswoman on budget matters. "We could have been like past administrations and say we're going to keep things status quo. We can't make those decisions anymore." Read More. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think