Small Illinois town feels betrayed by closure of prison, major employer in their underemployed town

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn

The people in the tiny rural town of Tamms, Ill., with 11 percent unemployment and its main source of jobs the state's maximum-security prison, just got word that the big-city governor they supported is mothballing the "supermax" facility. Jim Suhr of the Associated Press reports that the Southern Illinois town feels more than a bit betrayed by Gov. Pat Quinn's decision, made though lawmakers approved money to maintain the site, as well as a second facility in the north-central Illinois town of Dwight. Calling the closure “a profound and staggering loss,” the five-county Southern Five Regional Planning District and Development Commission forecast that eliminating the Tamms' prison’s 250 jobs ultimately would cost more than 200 more indirectly.

Quinn has offered to sell the 14-year-old facility to the federal government, but the pending closure has fostered ill will, "fanning the perception that Quinn and other Chicago powerbrokers don’t care much about folks outside the Windy City," writes Suhr. Illinois has been under pressure to close Tamms from activists who argue "its tough security measures are inhumane, and lawmakers have had to make a number of painful spending decisions given the state’s enormous 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." In offering to see the prison to the federal government,  Quinn noted its isolated location and access to an interstate as selling points.