Quinn looks to close Joliet youth prison

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Dwight Correctional Center houses women in Dwight. | Rich Hein~Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 23, 2012 8:26AM

SPRINGFIELD — The youth prison in Joliet and women’s maximum-security prison in Dwight face closure under a proposed spending plan that Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration described as “the toughest budget we’ve faced.”

The governor also plans to close a super-maximum security prison in downstate Tamms; a second youth-detention center; and six secure halfway houses, the latter of which could result in the early release of as many as 1,000 inmates into the general public, the state government’s largest employee union predicted Tuesday.

It is unclear where the juvenile inmates housed in Joliet would be relocated under his plan.

The nearly $66 million hit to the Illinois Department of Corrections represents the most eye-grabbing piece of a budget plan that the governor will outline Wednesday to a joint session of the General Assembly.

But in two areas that pose a suffocating multibillion-dollar burden on the state budget — sky-rocketing Medicaid and state pension costs — the governor won’t propose anything specific to lawmakers, aides told reporters in a Tuesday evening budget briefing.

Quinn’s spending plan also calls for consolidating two dozen Department of Human Services offices across the state and three Department of Children and Family Services offices in Chicago and Skokie.

Closing the 82-year-old Dwight Correctional Center, Illinois’ only maximum-security prison for women and home to notorious murderers like Elk Grove Village family killer Patricia Columbo, would save the state $36.9 million annually. The nearly 1,000 prisoners there would be relocated to the Logan Correctional Center in downstate Lincoln, which would be converted from a men’s prison.

Shutting down six adult transition centers, including two in Chicago and one in Aurora, would result in $17.7 million in savings. Prisoners at these halfway houses would be put on electronic home detention when they weren’t employed in their communities during the day.

“We will not jeopardize public safety. That’s our No. 1 concern,” said Jack Lavin, Quinn’s chief of staff. “We’ll work closely with ... the Department of Corrections to make sure public-safety concerns are addressed on these closures.”

The 500-bed Tamms prison — opened in 1998 under former Gov. Jim Edgar’s administration in southern Illinois — was designed to house the worst-of-the-worst among Illinois’ prison inmates.

Under Quinn’s plan, the prison would be targeted for closure in August, potentially saving taxpayers $21.6 million in the upcoming fiscal year and $26.6 million annually thereafter. The most violent Tamms inmates would be relocated to the Pontiac Correctional Center, with the rest going to two nearby prisons.

“Tamms is relatively small. We have other maximum-security capabilities in the state,” Quinn budget director David Vaught told reporters.

Tamms has been the frequent target of human-rights, prisoner-advocacy groups and even a federal judge because of the harsh conditions that exist there.