Unions and politicians had a variety of reactions to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s plan to rebuild two state prisons, Stateville and Logan.
The guard tower stands in the middle of F House at Stateville Correctional Center on March 18, 2002. Illinois Department of Corrections officials on Dec. 1, 2016, announced the closure of Stateville Correctional Center’s F House, known as the “roundhouse.” The union representing prison employees said it was concerned over the lack of details in Gov. J.B.
The John Howard Association, an independent prison monitor, praised the governor’s acknowledgement of the poor conditions at Stateville and at Logan, a women’s correctional center. Politicians representing the area around Stateville, in Crest Hill near Joliet, said they looked forward to the potential positive economic impact of rebuilding the facility.
On Friday, IDOC spokesperson Naomi Puzzello said the “mission” of the rebuilt facilities has yet to be determined.The plan for Logan, located in downstate Lincoln, is less clear, and “will depend on how the serious maintenance/repair needs progress” and the affordability of those repairs, Puzzello said in an email Friday.Displacement of workers and inmates, even temporarily, is a key concern for AFSCME, which questioned where those individuals would be placed during the construction period.
With Logan’s future site uncertain — the governor’s office said “the location of the new facility is still being finalized” — Mayor Tracy Welch of Lincoln said his fear is losing the state facility. It would be the latest in a line of economic losses for the town, after two local colleges announced they would effectively close in the past two years.
“Especially for the city of Crest Hill, it’s important in some ways because they can’t just let it go away,” said Bertino-Terrant. “Obviously, these are the people who we employ locally here.” Yet the legislators also voiced concern about the logistics of rebuilding Stateville. State Sen. Rachel Ventura, a Democrat from Joliet, suggested that people incarcerated in Stateville, as well as its staff, could possibly be temporarily relocated to an in-patient mental health treatment center in Joliet that she said “is not fully staffed nor is it nowhere near capacity.”
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