DoC still working out policy for former Tamms prisoners

North segregation wing at Pontiac Correctional Center

By Jamey Dunn

Inmates who were transferred from a now-shuttered super-maximum security prison in Tamms  remain in relative isolation at the Pontiac Correctional Center with no immediate possibility of rejoining the general prison population.

The Tamms Correctional Center closed in January, and most inmates were transferred to the maximum-security facility in Pontiac. Pontiac Warden Randy Pfister said that for many of the prisoners, this was not their first time at Pontiac. “Many of the ex-Tamms offenders had already spent time at Pontiac Correctional [Center]. They’re very familiar with Pontiac Correctional Center,” he told reporters after leading them on a tour of Pontiac last Friday.

On the day of the visit, Pontiac held 1,948 inmates. According to the John Howard Association, a prison watchdog group, Pontiac is designed to hold 1,800 inmates. The Department of Corrections lists the prison’s capacity 2,152. It costs almost $32,000 to house a prisoner at Pontiac for a year. Pfister estimated that about half of the men serving time at Pontiac will be behind bars for the rest of their lives.

Former Tamms prisoners fall under two general categories. About 50 of them are in disciplinary segregation at Pontiac. Pfister said that serious infractions of the rules in the prison system, such as assaults or possession of contraband, land inmates in long term segregation. Inmates who rack up more than a year of segregation are typically transferred to Pontiac to serve their disciplinary time. “Violate the rules or the policies or procedures of the Department of Corrections; basically it’s the same as if you break a law on the streets.”

The former Tamms prisoners in segregation live under the strictest conditions at the facility. They spend the vast majority of their time and take all of their meals in small cells by themselves. The cell doors are covered in Plexiglas and metal grating. The addition of Plexiglas is one of the infrastructure changes made specifically for the former Tamm’s prisoners. Reporters were not allowed on the wings where the “worst of the worst” of former Tamms inmates are housed at Pontiac. “The North segregation [where former Tamms prisoners are held], it’s a different atmosphere,” said Frank Turner, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 494. Turner, who is a corrections officer at Pontiac, said prisoners in other cell blocks have more incentive to exhibit good behavior because they have more opportunities to earn rewards.

The inmates in North segregation are allowed five hours of recreation time a week. They take that in large rust-colored metal cages in the prison yard. Segregation prisoners are not allowed to bring anything into the cages, dubbed recreation pods by DoC. There is a pull-up bar, and Pontiac staff said prisoners often exercise or yell back in forth to prisoners in other pods when they are in the yard. There is a system at Pontiac for stepping down segregation prisoners to less restrictive conditions, but Stacey Solano, a spokeswoman for DoC, said that no former Tamms inmates have been placed under a different security classification than their status was at the super-max prison. Pfister said some inmates in segregation at Pontiac should never be returned to a general prison population because of the dangers that they present and their inability to follow the rules.

Cell in North cell house where Tamms prisoners reside

About 160 of the former Tamms inmates fall into a category called administrative detention. Those inmates are held outside of the general prison population because of safety and security concerns. One possible reason why an inmate might be placed in administrative detention could be gang ties that are causing rivalries or disputes in the general population. Many of the former Tamms prisoners who fall into this category get to take yard time with up to five other inmates. That means they can play games, such as basketball. When reporters entered Pontiac on a warm spring day last week, several former Tamms inmates where doing just that on courts that are surrounded by high chain-link fence topped with razor wire. They joked with reporters and greeted them.

Recreation pods where segregation inmates get yard time.

Inmates in administrative detention typically get more time in the yard than those in segregation Pfister said they can spend up to nine hours a week outside. Administrative detention inmates are reevaluated every 90 days to determine if they still need to be separated from the general population. However, DoC  has no plan in place for integrating any of the former Tamms inmates. Solano said that DoC is developing a policy to transition Tamms inmates back into the general population, but has no timeline for when that might happen. She said former Tamms inmates could earn additional privileges at Pontiac if their 90-day evaluations are positive.

Basketball courts where some former Tamms inmates play.      

Laurie Jo Reynolds, founder of the group Tamms Year Ten that was pushing for reforms at the prison but now supports its closure, said that DoC’s administrative detention policy was one of the group’s major concerns when it came to Tamms. She said prisoners under the classification could find themselves at Tamms with no explanation for how they got there because the prison intelligence that sent them there was classified and often flawed. “The thing about going to Tamms was there were no clear criteria. It was very unclear why people were at Tamms.” But she said, “At least people who were in segregation at Tamms knew why they were in segregation.” She said those in administrative detention did not have due process to challenge their status. Reynolds said those in administrative detention now are generally experiencing better conditions than at Tamms, but they still have no way of knowing when they might return to the general inmate population. “There’s way less men in administrative detention over at Menard [Correctional Center], but it’s the same situation over there.” While a few former Tamms inmates were sent to Menard, the majority of them ended up at Pontiac.

Former Tamms prisoners in both categories are restricted on how they can move around the prison when they are out of their cells. The warden said the prison is using a combination of security protocols pulled from rules applied at Tamms, under Pontiac's current segregation policy and on the former death row at Pontiac, which now houses Tamms inmates that are in administrative detention. He said former Tamms prisoners are always accompanied by a guard when they are moved, and a prison sergeant is always nearby.

Cell doors for segregation inmates from Tamms.

Pfister said that so far, the former Tamms prisoners have not made life much more difficult at Pontiac. “Other than that mass hunger strike, we have had absolutely no issues. There’s been no ex-Tamms offenders involved in any violent assaults or involved with any thing out of the ordinary that doesn’t occur here with regular segregation inmates,” he said. Several of the former Tamms inmates joined some Pontiac inmates in a hunger strike shortly after they arrived at Pontiac. The Tamms inmates complained that they were being treated differently from the other Pontiac prisoners.

Among their demands, they asked that private property that they had in Tamms be returned to them. “Many of the issues were property issues,” said Pfister. “Because we got over 100 of them in a two-day period, it took us a little while to get their personal property.” Segregation inmates from Tamms also asked that the Plexiglas be removed from their cells, a request that has not been accommodated. “We totally opposed that because those men were in Tamms, and they were not behind Plexiglas, and they were fine,” said Reynolds. Tamms Year Ten was not associated with the hunger strike, but the group is working to ensure that former Tamms prisoners do not encounter discrimination in their new placements at other prisons. She said that she thinks that Pfister is doing his best to treat former Tamms prisoners like the other inmates at Pontiac. However, she said there is also the possibility that inmates might have an issue with individual guards. “I really did fully believe that he was treating everyone the same. I really think that is his whole mantra in life.”

Pfister said of the inmates in his prison: “We just deal with them professionally and respectfully and treat them like a man. They’ve already been judged; that’s not our job.”

The warden said that the hunger strike has ended, but he said some prisoners held out for a long time. “I think the longest one was just under 50 days,” he said. Despite the hunger strike, Reynolds said that much of the feedback from inmates and their families after the move to Pontiac has been positive. “This is [a] very good experience that you’re seeing our guys having and that the family members are happy about.” She said that there was concern that DoC employees might take out their frustration over the recent prison closing on Tamms inmates. “We were so terrified that these guys were going to go there and be really treated badly, and they would act out, and there would be a lot of tension.” But Reynolds said the reality at Pontiac is very different. “The staff and everybody was so nice to the parents, they were just in shock.” She said the visitation process at Pontiac is much easier for families to negotiate. For Tamms visits, they have to mail in paperwork and undergo a screening each time. Often, they would make the trip to the prison in the state’s southern tip only to be turned away. “The Tamms visitation policy was such a circus of nonsense that they put family members through.”

Reynolds said she has major concerns about the isolation polices at Pontiac, but she said for former Tamms inmates, just getting to eat an orange, smell the grass and see the sky on a regular basis is an improvement from their lives at the super-max facility. “They’re having sensory experiences at Pontiac. They weren’t having them at Tamms.”

Pontiac's visiting room. Inmates are not allowed contact with visitors.

Prison workers did not have much to say about the Tamms inmates creating any specific new safety problems. They said they are most concerned with the overcrowding in the system that is being exacerbated as Gov. Pat Quinn’s closes corrections facilities. Quinn says the facilities must be closed to cut costs as Illinois struggles to find fiscal stability. Nearly 150 staff members from the recently closed Dwight Correctional Center for Women were scheduled to start work at Pontiac today. Turner said that housing two inmates in a cell has become more widespread at Pontiac, and it can lead to more violence. “I know that there’s more than a handful of fights inside those cells with the double celling. We’ve been fortunate here that we haven’t had anybody killed as they have in Menard,” he said. Three Menard inmates have died recently, and a former Menard prisoner has been charged with murder in one of the cases. “When you start jamming segregation high-aggression inmates together like that, when you have no room to move them around as in Pontiac — we don’t have the ability to move inmates around a lot because we do not have the bed space — it’s going to create a problem sooner or later,” Turner said.

He said that the crowding at other prisons also makes it difficult to execute inmate management policies. “We’ve got 33,000 beds, and we’ve got 49,000 inmates. You know, the math doesn’t add up. And they’ve announced that they’ve got six institutions that we’re putting cots in the gymnasiums. The writing’s on the wall. If you’ve got more inmates than you’ve got beds, there’s going to be a problem.” He said the conflicts that result from overcrowding at lower security levels mean that more inmates will likely rack up segregation time and potentially be sent to Pontiac. At some point, he said, there just wouldn’t be any more room at the higher security level prisons for more dangerous inmates. “You’re going to have to take inmates that don’t fit the criteria at a lower institution because you don’t have enough beds at the higher security level.” Turner said the additional staff from the Dwight closure will help to take some pressure off guards at Pontiac, who he says have been working a high level of overtime. “Unfortunately they’re closing a facility. That’s taking beds away. That doesn’t make any sense.”

For more on the debate surrounding the closure of Tamms super-max prison, see Illinois Issues June 2102. 

Illinois Issues also toured a minimum security prison in Vienna. You can read about that facility at the Illinois Issues blog.

Aside from facility closings, Quinn's budget proposal is expected to be short on details

By Jamey Dunn

Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget proposal  on Wednesday will call for the closure of more than a dozen state facilities, but will likely run short on specifics about reforming the state’s costly Medicaid and pension systems.

Top members of Quinn’s staff said in a budget briefing this evening that the governor plans to propose closing14 state facilities, including prisons, youth prisons, mental health centers, centers for the developmentally disabled and adult transition centers, which work to get newly released inmates back on their feet. The list includes:

• Tamms "super-max" prison
• Dwight Correctional Center 
• Singer Mental Health Center in Rockford
• Murray Developmental Center in Centralia
• Jacksonville Developmental Center 
• Tinley Park Mental Health Center 
• Joliet Juvenile Justice Center 
• Murphysboro Juvenile Justice Center 

Quinn also plans to propose closing two adult transition centers in Chicago, as well as centers in Peoria, Decatur, Aurora and Carbondale. According to budget documents provided by Quinn’s office, the closures will result in 1,112 layoffs.

Lawmakers and advocates alike balked at Quinn’s long list of proposed closures. “This is an absolute nightmare. I was afraid Governor Quinn’s budget would put the Murray Center in its sights. Does the administration have an idea what this will do to the patients, families and the city of Centralia? I have met with the administration officials and thought that they would have some legitimate long-term strategy on this issue – but they do not,” Sen. John Jones, a Mt. Vernon Republican, said in a prepared statement. “Since they initially floated this idea last year, the economy in Centralia has slumped. Well, now that these plans are at least laid out, it’s time to dig in, and I vow to oppose the closure plans.”

Quinn has said he plans to transition residents and patients in mental health and developmental care into community based setting that would be less costly and provide a better quality of care. A budget document from Quinn’s office said that his Fiscal Year 2013 budget will include money to transition people from institutions to community care.

The plan calls for moving about half of the fewer than 400 Tamms inmates to the maximum-security wing of the Pontiac Correctional Center. Tamms holds especially violent or disruptive prisoners who have been deemed too dangerous to house in the general prison population. According to budget documents from Quinn's office, the other half would be “relocated accordingly.” The about 1,000 inmates currently locked up at the Dwight prison, which is a women’s facility, would be moved to the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, which would be converted to an all female prison. Male prisoners from Logan would be moved to the Lincoln Correctional Center, which would be converted to an all male center.

Dwight is currently the state’s only level-one maximum security lockup for female prisoners. It is the processing center for female prisoners and also houses lower security inmates. “Dwight not a perfect place, but compared to other facilities in the DOC, there’s a lot going right with Dwight,” said John Maki, executive director of the prison watchdog group John Howard Association. Maki said that he does not envision any workable scenario for closing Dwight. “This would be impossible. This is not a serious proposal.”

 Quinn’s budget staff said former inmates would still receive the services, such as vocational training and addiction treatment, provided by the adult transition centers. “Instead of doing that from these adult transition centers located all over the state…they’re going to do it on electronic detention,” said David Vaught, Quinn’s budget director.”

Quinn’s budget proposal will also call for elimination of 24 out of the 90 Department of Human Services offices through consolidation. The plan also calls for the elimination of four Department of Child and Family Services offices from which Vaught said employees would be transferred. “They’re not going to reduce employees. They’re not going to reduce services," Vaught said of the consolidations. The proposal calls for the elimination of one of the state’s two agriculture laboratories, as well. A lab in Centralia would close, and a lab in Galesburg would remain open. “Everybody in the state is going to be affected by this downsizing of state government and this closing of state facilities,” Vaught said.

 Jack Lavin, Quinn’s chief of staff said, “Every year, we say, ‘This is the toughest budget,’ and I’m saying again this year, ‘This is the toughest budget we’ve ever faced.’”

However, Quinn also plans to call for some new spending. The governor wants a $20 million increase for early childhood education and a $50 million increase for the Monetary Award Program (MAP) grants for college students. Both areas have been cut in recent budget years. The governor also plans to revisit tax cut proposals pitched in his State of the State address as ways to spur economic growth in the state. Quinn also plans to propose new capital spending on schools, water systems and deferred maintenance at state facilities. His budget staff said that he does not have a specific estimate for how much new capital borrowing would be needed for such projects. They said new revenues would be needed to fund the projects but did not point to any one source. “We need to make sure that it’s not just about cutting. It’s about building and growing,” Lavin said of Quinn’s proposal.

What Quinn likely won’t give many details on are the two biggest budget issues he is looking to tackle this year: reforms to the Medicaid and public employee pension systems.

Quinn wants to hold Medicaid spending flat, which would mean staving off an estimated $2.7 billion in costs for FY 13. Stermer said that Quinn wants to work with legislators so see what changes can be made to state laws. He pointed to the list of services provided and said the governor wants to partner with legislators and reevaluate all services that are not required by the federal government. He said the state needs to step up implementation of managed care programs and focus on providing the consistent medical care people need to stay healthy. “We need to convert this whole thing to a wellness program,” he said. “We’re not just going to wait for people to go from provider to provider to provider and just pay the bills.” He called pushing Medicaid costs into future budget years — as lawmakers did with about $2 billion Medicaid bills that will carry over into next fiscal year — “a recipe for collapse of the Medicaid program.”

As for pension reform, Stermer said the working group he is heading is trying to tackle the issue, and any reforms they propose would be vetted by the standard legislative process. So it is unlikely Quinn will pitch anything too specific Wednesday. “We’re doing something very very akin to formal negotiations with stakeholders,” Stermer said.

Quinn is scheduled to present his budget Wednesday at noon.

AFSCME: Prison assault is product of overcrowding

By Jamey Dunn

Union officials say the attempted sexual assault of a corrections officer in the Danville Correctional Center illustrates the dangers associated with the state’s overcrowded prison system.

According the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents corrections employees statewide, an inmate who was housed in a gym at the medium security prison was in a separate housing unit doing laundry for other inmates housed in the gym. He allegedly lured a corrections officer into a laundry facility by claiming a machine was broken, punched her in the jaw and attempted to rape her. The union’s account says the guard was saved when another inmate responded to her screams and halted the attack.

The Department of Corrections denies that the officer was alone at the time of the attack. “The corrections officer who was assaulted was absolutely not the only officer with the inmates at the time. IDoC procedure calls for three: two officers and a control officer. That proven effective level of staffing was in place during the shift covering this assault,” Tom Shaer, a spokesman for the department, said in a written statement.

The department acknowledges an attack occurred but gives few details. “Danville Correctional Center is on lockdown after an assault on an officer early this morning. No serious injuries were sustained, and a thorough investigation is under way. Any physical contact with a guard is unacceptable, but again, fortunately, the officer was not seriously injured,” said a written statement from the department. “The Illinois Department of Corrections takes all incidents very seriously, as safety and security are our constant priorities. We have interviewed the officer, who is at home, other staff and inmate witnesses as we gather all the facts. Director [Tony] Godinez has also talked to the officer and extended his continued thanks for the fine work being done by this experienced individual and all DOC personnel.”

Gov. Pat Quinn has closed several corrections facilities including halfway houses, juvenile detention centers, a super-maximum security prison in Tamms and a women’s prison in Dwight. Quinn said that the state’s budget woes made the closures necessary. Women from Dwight were moved to the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln. Men from Logan swapped places with women at the Lincoln Correctional Center. As part of the transition, an estimated 600 male prisoners were bused to six other prisons to be housed in gymnasiums filled with bunk beds. The department describes the situation as temporary, but it has yet to give specifics on its plan to stop putting prisoners in gyms. “It’s a temporary dorm setting. Obviously, we have no control over the inmates that we receive into the system,” corrections spokeswomen Stacey Solano told Illinois Issues last month when asked about the prisoners in gyms.  Similar conditions existed at other low level security facilities before the closures. However, inmates are housed on large wings instead of in gyms.

AFSCME sued to try to block the closures, arguing that they would create an unsafe environment for its members. But the Illinois Supreme Court sided with Quinn. “The men and women who work in our prisons provide for the safety of the public, and they deserve the safest possible working conditions,” AFSCME executive director Henry Bayer said in a written statement today. “Their job is difficult, but the choices of politicians have made it worse. The state has ignored its responsibility to provide the resources needed to maintain safety, and now workers are bearing the terrible consequences.”

 The Danville Correctional Center was designed to hold 900 inmates in single cells. By putting more than one prisoner in each cell, the department pegs the prison’s operational capacity at 1,862. According to the union’s count, at 1,931 the prison is currently over operational capacity.

AFSCME says that the prison is also understaffed. The union’s account of the attack says that the officer was alone in the housing unit. “Although prison directives require that two officers be posted on each unit at all times, they are routinely circumvented by management on the overnight shift, leaving a single officer alone. The union has repeatedly objected to this practice at Danville and elsewhere, fearing just this sort of opportunistic and predatory violence.”

However, a spokesman for DoC said that the department does not leave mandatory guard positions open. “In every correctional facility, there are mandatory posts. The Department of Corrections covers every mandatory post and does not leave them vacant,” Shaer said. The most recent report on the Danville facility from the prison watchdog group The John Howard Association is from 2011. The report says that like many DoC facilities, Danville was “plagued by staff vacancies.” The report predicted that understaffing could be an issue for the prison. “As more staff near retirement age, vacancies may cause problems in the near future.”

The Danville attack comes after recent reports of violent incidents at maximum security facilities, including the murders of three inmates at the Menard Correctional Center. But Anders Lindall, a spokesperson for AFSCME Council 31, said problems are not exclusive to the higher security facilities. “The dangers of crowding and violence are not only at the max security level. Every facility in the system is interdependent on others,” Lindall said.

Despite the department’s statement, Lindall said it is “on going practice” at some facilities to cover staffing gaps by having officers from mandatory posts cover other duties on the night shift. He said the union has “repeatedly” raised concerns about it. “You have an inmate who is housed in a gym and an officer who was left alone on a housing unit — all circumstances about which we have sounded the alarm in the past. This shouldn’t have happened.”

Super-max prison reforms proposed

By Bethany Jaeger
One of the state’s maximum-security prisons designed to hold the most disruptive and violent offenders has a new set of rules that are intended to give inmates incentives to improve their behavior so they can return to less restrictive facilities.

The new Illinois Department of Corrections director, Michael Randle, issued a 10-step plan for reforming Tamms Correctional Center, which is at the very southwestern tip of the state. It houses an average of 432 men, costing an average of $67,000 each, according to the department. Male prisoners arrive at Tamms if they pose a threat to other inmates, themselves or prison staff. It’s one of six maximum-security prisons in Illinois and is intended for short-term placement until inmates are stable and able to return to the general prison population.

The “supermax” prison has been under scrutiny from human rights advocates and a volunteer group known as Tamms Year Ten for what it deems as prolonged solitary confinement and poor treatment of mentally ill prisoners.

Appointed by Quinn in May to replace former director Roger Walker, Randle was born in Chicago but worked 19 years in the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, most recently as assistant director. His first assignment in Illinois was to review Tamms.

His 10-step plan announced today in Chicago includes a full mental health evaluation of all Tamms prisoners within 30 days of their arrival. Clinical staff also will make weekly rounds of all areas throughout the prison, not just the mental health unit, to detect whether inmates’ conditions worsen or if they become suicidal.

Another significant change is the new process for reviewing prisoners who are to be transferred from a lower security prison to Tamms. Hearings will be conducted to allow inmates to rebut information that led them to be placed in Tamms, and they would be able to appeal their placement there. All hearings would be recorded.

Other changes include:

• Inform each inmate of an estimated time they’ll stay at Tamms and how they can earn privileges and eventually transfer out to a less restrictive prison.
• Enhance incentives for good behavior, including earning the right to use the telephone or spend more time out of their cells.
• Begin offering General Educational Development testing.
• Implement congregate religious services for inmates.
• Rescind some of the restrictions on printed materials.
• Develop a plan to allow inmates access to a “step down” program, which would help at-risk inmates transition from Tamms to the general prison population.
• Plan a media, legislative and public outreach program that includes a visit to Tamms.
• Reexamine the population of inmates having served extensive time at Tamms to see whether they are eligible to transfer out. Some have been at Tamms since it opened in 1998.

Laurie Jo Reynolds, organizer of the Tamms Year Ten grass-roots campaign, says Randle’s reforms move in the right direction. The establishment of a transfer review hearing, for instance, is significant, she said. “Over half the prisoners who are there were not actually convicted of a crime in an Illinois prison, and many of them did not know the reasons for their placement. So this is a welcome reform.”

But she added that the reforms in general don’t go as far as desired in House Bill 2633, sponsored by Rep. Julie Hamos, an Evanston Democrat. (Hamos put the bill on hold in May because Randle recently took over, and she wanted to see what changes he would make.)

Hamos’ bill, as well as Tamms Year Ten, Amnesty International and other mental health advocates in Illinois, have sought an independent monitoring of mental health diagnosis and treatment of the prisoners.

“Our concern is that there are a lot of mentally ill prisoners there who have not been properly diagnosed or treated, and there’s nothing in the plan that would provide a safeguard for those prisoners,” Reynolds said.

According to Randle, who said he hasn’t considered an independent monitor, all staff are trained in recognizing the symptoms of mental illness or other psychological needs on an as-needed basis. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think it’s necessary for us to do that,” he said.

Reynolds said she also hoped to see clear criteria outlining reasons for transferring inmates to Tamms, rather than using the current case-by-case approach. She said she continues to work with other advocates and legislators to consider whether legislation should codify the changes so they remain permanent regardless of whether the administration changes.

Randle said he doesn’t know whether legislation would be needed because the changes are happening now and are intended to be permanent. However, he added: “I think it’s important to point out that a lot of this is contingent on the offenders’ behavior. … If the guys behave appropriately and do the right things, certainly these things will continue. If we begin to have issues that come up as a result of this, then certainly we need to be in a position to take a look at these.”

Reynolds said Quinn did a great thing by appointing Randle. “I feel like he is committed to long-term reforms and to changes, which are beneficial to both public safety and to prisoners and to lowering recidivism,” she said. On the other hand, she added, “this list of 10 things could end up being really superficial or they could end up being profound, depending on how they’re implemented. So we can only look forward to dialogue as we go forward.”

Vienna has cleaned up its act, but overcrowding is still a problem

By Jamey Dunn

While the Illinois Department of Corrections has fixed some of the serious maintenance issues at the Vienna Correctional Center, the overcrowding in the prison is hard to overlook.

The minimum security prison in southern Illinois became the subject of scrutiny after the John Howard Association, a Chicago-based prison watchdog group, released a report last year detailing conditions that the report called “deplorable” and “unfit” for the inmates living there. Several news outlets asked to tour that prison and others in the state, but Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration initially denied those requests. Newspapers then ran editorials critical of the lack of transparency. WBEZ Chicago threatened to sue the administration to gain access, and Quinn then relented. DoC announced in October that reporters would be allowed to tour three of the state’s prisons: Vandalia Correctional Center, another minimum security prison plagued by reports of substandard living conditions; Pontiac Correctional Center, a maximum security prison that would absorb prisoners from the super-maximum security prison near Tamms as part of Quinn’s facility closure plan; and the prison in Vienna, where DoC officials led reporters on a tour on Friday.

With an average daily population of a little more than 1,600, the prison now holds twice the number of inmates it was designed to house. However, warden Randy Davis said the facility’s emphasis on education, vocation and recreation makes that number manageable. “Could we drop a couple two or three hundred [prisoners]? Yeah, that would be great. ... Do I think for the most part we are extremely overcrowded? Not really. Not based on the fact that we try to get the inmates out a lot of the institution. We make every effort to get them into recreation, vocational training, education programs. My thing is, I like to see inmates out and about and doing things. It’s easier to operate. You have less problems,” said Davis, who has been warden at the facility since December 2012.

Vienna Correctional Center consists of several building, including six housing halls that were built in the 1970s and resemble dorms, albeit far less cushy than the average college freshman expects today. Most cells in those units hold two prisoners and are about 7 feet by 6 1/2 feet. Some cells hold only one prisoner and have a toilet. Davis said older inmates with health problems are typically assigned to them. Two of the cells entered by reporters had holes in the wall. Davis said there used to be shelves in the cells, but they were removed, and the holes should have been filled. The hole in one cell did not penetrate the wall completely but instead resembled a small cubby. In another unoccupied cell, the hole had been taped over.

The housing units are not air-conditioned, and some inmates complained that they are also not heated well. Inmates can open windows covered with metal screens in their cells. “I’ve had times that it’s been awful cold in here. Awful cold. And you wore [all] your clothes and everything just to try to keep warm and still chatter your teeth,” said Richard Nicholson, who has been at Vienna for two years, serving time for residential burglary. “I wore my hat, my coat and every piece of clothing I had just to keep warm.” He is scheduled for release later this month.

During the day, prisoners in the units have to go outside, but they must be present in their cells for counts that occur four times daily. They have keys to their doors, so they can lock up their belongings. In the yard outside one of the housing units, two prisoners played a bean bag toss game commonly seen at college parties, while two others argued about football. Inmates lifted weights, attended to jobs, such as cleaning, and played basketball. Some hung out in their rooms reading, sleeping or watching television. Some of those who cannot afford a TV sat in the common rooms of the housing units watching the shared set in each building. Each unit has a shared bathroom with three toilets, two urinals and four showers shared by about 60 prisoners. Davis said work had been done to address the leaky pipes and mold problems described in the John Howard report. The shower that a reporter saw had been freshly painted within a few days before the tour. Davis said keeping the bathroom paint fresh and the plumbing in the old building workable is an ongoing battle. “Our plumbers and our pipe fitters stay very busy.”

Davis said he is most proud of the vocational and educational programs, housed in their own dedicated building, which looks a bit like an old brick school. The prison offers several vocational programs, including a body shop, a mechanics program and a cosmetology course. Visitors to the cosmetology program could almost imagine they had stepped into a barbershop outside of the prison’s gates. A row of chairs with salon hair dryer hoods runs down the middle of the room. Posters of people modeling hairstyles hung on the walls. Inmates in the program worked at their stations — which include a large mirror and styling chair along with clips, combs, trimmers and other essentials — cutting, shaving and styling other inmates’ hair with intense focus.

But the vocational and educational programs are not an option for prisoners who never make it past the waiting lists that average 50 to 100 inmates long, depending on the program. About half of the inmates at Vienna are only serving a year or less there. “That is key. That is absolutely where the rubber hits the road. While we don’t control who comes in, when we send people out, we’re hoping they come out better so they don’t come back in,” said DoC Director Tony Godinez. “So we’re re-shifting our program efforts to those individuals that are going to be leaving us soon because it makes more sense to re-divert those program efforts to those individuals — education, vocational studies, drug treatment. Because those are the individuals that are actually leaving soon, that could potentially come back, not the person that’s doing 40 years.” Inmates also work in the prison, but there are only about 650 jobs available.

Building 19, which is one of only two original 1965 buildings left at the facility, gained a level of public infamy after the John Howard report and ensuing news stories, but its conditions have been well-known among Vienna prisoners for some time. If you ask an inmate about 19, odds are he has something to say. The building houses the prison’s intake center, and new prisoners live there until permanent placement at one of the housing units. Davis said inmates typically live there for about 10 days, but he said it sometimes takes longer to place offenders who have gang affiliations because they must be kept away from inmates in rival gangs. About 500 inmates are in the building at any time.

One inmate, who did not want to give his name, said he had been living in Building 19 for his entire six-month sentence, which was scheduled to an end in a few weeks. Davis said that in some cases, inmates with short sentences do spend all their time at Vienna living in Building 19. The John Howard Report was especially critical of the conditions there, detailing disrepair and disgusting living arrangements. “On both floors, windows were broken and without screens. As a result, birds had flown into the living areas and built nests in the light fixtures. Inmates complained that mice, cockroaches and other insects were everywhere.”

Reporters did not find such conditions on their tour last week. Most windows had been repaired, although a few were still boarded up here and there. The inmate who spent his six-month sentence in 19 said he was bothered by spiders and mold in the building. Another prisoner, Marcus Johnson, who said he had been in Building 19 since he arrived at Vienna in September, said there had been a mouse crawling in the hollow frame of his bunk bed, but prison workers put out traps and the mouse stopped making its appearances soon after. Nicholson, who lived in Building 19 in 2010, had this to say: “Back then, I’ve got to say that it wasn’t real good. It needed a lot of work. The bathrooms dripped on you whenever you were using them, the piping. I imagine they’ve got that fixed by now. But I would say that building is not really fit for people.” But he said that there had been recent improvements all over the prison. “Lately, they’ve really been cracking down and doing quite a bit.” Davis said that after he was hired last year, there was no time to replace the original 1960s windows before the winter. “We did board up the windows last year,” he said. “We just didn’t have time to get that fixed.” He pointed out that the prison is in a rural area, where even homeowners usually have to deal with some pests. “You’re going to have mice, and you’re going to have bugs.” But he said that the prison has switched pest control vendors since the John Howard visit, and he said he has seen improvement.

However, another section of the report still rings true. “As JHA entered the second floor, we saw hundreds of inmates with nothing to do except pace around the room or huddle around a small television in the corner of the room. A Vienna staff member seemed to recognize the stunned look on our faces. ‘This is a nightmare,’ he said quietly to one of JHA’s staff. ‘This should not be.’” It would be difficult for anyone who walked into Building 19 for the first time not to be a bit shocked at the row after row of metal bunk beds. Reporters were not allowed into a full wing, which typically houses about 100 inmates, but they walked past one. Inside, inmates called out for them to come talk to them and pointed to the room and the dozens of other inmates around them. But even in the wing that reporters entered, where most inmates had gone out for recreation, they got a feeling for what it was like for the residents. On an average weekday, inmates in building 19 get one to two hours of yard recreation. They get an hour in the gym about every three days. Davis said he hopes to convert a large room, now used to store laundry, into an indoor recreational area for 19 because once winter comes, outdoor recreation would be limited. Inmates in building 19 also take their meals in the prison cafeteria. But the rest of their time is spent on their wing of the building, penned up indoors with 100 other men. Most sit on their bunk beds, reading or watching television if they have one.
The hours kept by the prison’s cafeteria are another indicator of the issues caused by crowding. Breakfast service begins at 4:45, lunch at 9:30 and dinner at 3:30. Davis said that schedule is needed to have time to prepare food for and feed the more than 1,600 inmates.

“It’s overcrowded. Living amongst 104 inmates at a time is kind of hard, but that’s something you’ve got to deal with,” Johnson said. “Being amongst that many people, going to the restroom, we’ve got to wait because there’s like five or six sinks and it’s like 30 or 40 or 50 inmates at a time need to use the restroom or even the phone. You know, it’s kind of hard, but we all try to adapt to it.” Johnson said most inmates find something to do, such as reading books, and try to keep to themselves. “But you’ve got a lot of guys. That’s a hundred different personalities that you’ve got to deal with. People have their days where you say one thing, and they want to fly off the hinges.” Johnson is serving a two-year sentence for drug possession, and he said he does not know when he will be assigned to another housing unit. When asked what the hardest part of prison life was, he said: “The hardest? I mean, Building 19. Building 19 is the hardest. If you get me away from as many inmates at one time in one room then I’m all right. But right now, I can’t do nothing but just deal with it.”

Vienna Lt. Michael Turner, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 415, said the parts of the prison that reporters visited on the tour were representative of what the rest of the prison looks like. “What you saw ... is typical. It’s an institution. It’s not a brand new institution. It’s not an ancient institution. It’s one that needs a little TLC daily. We do the best we can to do that. Resources are very, very limited,” he said. Turner said the major issues are,  “in my opinion, I think more than the structure of the institution or the shape the institution is in, the overcrowding and the understaffing.”

Davis said the staff totals about 100, with about 60 corrections officers on duty on a typical weekday. He said the prison is about 70 people short of recommended staffing levels, and that security shifts would not be fully staffed if it weren’t for mandatory overtime for guards. Overtime shifts are 16 hours. “You can’t watch everything. You can’t control everything. You do what you can, and really, that’s all you can do,” Turner said. “Staff are tired. We’ve been doing this consistently since the beginning of the year.”

John Maki, executive director of the John Howard Association, said he is glad that DoC has fixed some of the maintenance issues that his organization highlighted, but he said the real problem is the number of inmates in the prison. “Prison overcrowding, you can’t make repairs in the facility to solve that problem.” He said Vienna was once a model for rehabilitation. “It used to be this crown jewel of the DoC. It was a place where people got educations. With the numbers they have, they can’t provide those services to everyone. It’s just not possible.” However, Maki said the public should not point the finger solely at IDoC. “This is a problem that the Department of Corrections cannot solve.”

The Department of Corrections is working to implement a new program that would allow prisoners to earn up to 180 days off their sentences in exchange for completing classes, working and participating in vocational programs. A similar program, known as the Meritorious Good Time program, was ended in 2010 when Quinn took heat for the DoC allowing inmates out after serving only weeks of their sentences. Advocates, including Maki, have said that shutting down that program contributed to the crowding at Vienna and other lower-security prisons in the state. Godinez said the new program should be up and running by early next year. “February. I hope it’s sooner than that. But we have to do this deliberately. There’s no rush in getting people out. Remember our mission — our core mission — is public safety.”

Maki said the only way to solve the crowding problem is to get lawmakers, law enforcement leaders, advocates and members of the public together “and ask ourselves what kind of prison system do we want to have?” He said that criminals should be punished. But for some, there might be different, cheaper ways than prison sentences. ‘Prison is only one form of punishment, but for low-level offenders, prison is not the appropriate form, and it’s very expensive” He noted that taxpayers are shelling out an estimated $22,000 per prisoner per year for incarceration at Vienna. “This model costs us money.”

As for the conditions of the prison system overall, Godinez said: “We have done the best that we can with the limited resources that we have. ... We’re running on a budget that we had six years ago with 4,000 more inmates and 3,000 less staff.”

Report of assaults stirs new debate over prison closures

By Jamey Dunn

Lawmakers and unions officials are asking Gov. Pat Quinn to but the brakes on prison closures after reports of recent assaults have surfaced.

The Associated Press reported that a corrections officer was stabbed at the Stateville Correctional Center and another guard was stabbed at the Pontiac Correctional Center in the last six weeks. The AP also reported that more than a dozen weapons have been found during recent searches of inmates cells, and that two prisoners were found unresponsive in the cell they shared. Officials from the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents prison guards, said that the two had overdosed on heroin. A spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections said she could not comment on the incident because it is part of an ongoing investigation. According to the IDOC, both inmates survived.

Legislators and union leaders say the reports bolster their arguments against closing some of the state’s corrections facilities.


Last week, Gov. Pat Quinn made clear his intentions to move forward with the closures with a few strokes of his veto pen. Quinn signed the budget sent to him by the General Assembly, but he vetoed $19.4 million that was included to run the state’s only super-maximum security prison located near Tamms and the $21.2 million included to operate a women’s prison in Dwight. In addition to the prisons, he plans to close three transition centers meant to help inmates reenter society. The prisons and transition centers are scheduled to be closed on August 31. (For more on the debate surrounding the closure of Tamms, see Illinois Issues, June 2012.)

Quinn also cut $8.9 million for a youth prison in Joliet and $6.6 million for a youth prison in Murphysboro. The facility in Joliet is slated for closure on November 30, and the Murphysboro facility is scheduled for closure on August 31.

Quinn’s administration said that the assaults have nothing to do with the governor’s closure plans. “There is no evidence of an increase in weapons found or assaults within the facilities as a result of the closure plans,”  Stacey Solano, a spokeswoman for the IDOC, said in a prepared statement. “As common practice, to ensure safety and security within the facilities, IDOC often searches for contraband and removes it. Inmates found to be in possession of contraband, or those who display negative behavior, are swiftly and appropriately disciplined.” 

However, opponents today called for the governor to halt the closures until lawmakers return for their fall veto session scheduled for November. They said the legislature should have a chance to vote to override the governor’s vetoes before the facilities are shuttered. “They should be halted. The governor should halt them, and he should wait for the General Assembly. ... The General Assembly worked very hard on this budget. They did allocate money to keep these facilities open,” said Henry Bayer, executive director of AFSCME Council 31.

Lawmakers who oppose closing prisons argued that news of recent assaults undermines Quinn’s claims that the prisons will be safe after the closures. “Every prison now is overcrowded,” said Sen. Gary Forby, a Benton Democrat. “You’re going to hurt officers. You’re going to hurt prisoners. You’re going to hurt the state of Illinois.” Forby said that he and other opponents of the closures plan to lobby lawmakers to reject Quinn’s vetoes of corrections spending. “We’re going to try to override him. I’m going to stick to my guns.”

Republicans said Quinn should not have vetoed the money for prisons and then urged for spending elsewhere, such as the Department of Child and Family Services. Quinn also plans to close mental health centers and centers for the developmentally disabled as part of an effort to save money and move away from institutional care.

Sen. David Luechtefeld, an Okawville Republican, said Quinn rejected the money for facilities and “in the next breath, he doesn’t say to ‘pay some of our bills.’” He added, “It’s to simply spend the money someplace else.”

Rep. Mike Bost, a Murphysboro Republican, said: “We did our jobs. We put the money in the budget. We showed where our priorities were.”

Quinn argues that the facilities are a drain on the state’s budget, and money to fund them should instead be used to fund things that he sees as more pressing priorities. “Anyone who calls to keep these outdated, half-full, expensive facilities open is calling for the continual waste of taxpayer dollars on facilities the state no longer needs,” Kelly Kraft, a Quinn budget spokeswoman, said in a prepared statement. “The overall population is down from last year, and female entries into the system are declining. Inmates will be safely and securely transitioned into appropriate facilities fully capable of securing offenders and resulting in costs savings to Illinois taxpayers. Some will say that money was provided in the budget to keep these facilities open when in reality, legislators made a choice on how to spend taxpayer dollars: choosing outdated, half-full, expensive prisons over educating our children and keeping them safe,” 

Frank Mautino, a budget point man for the House Democrats, said that the budget bills would not have had the support to clear appropriations committees and reach a floor vote in the House if they had not contained funding for the state facilities targeted for closure. “Facility closures were the linchpin of the budget. ... Amongst the committee negotiations is where it became the linchpin,” he said.

Mautino, from Spring Valley, said that while there were not explicit agreements that he knows of between lawmakers and Quinn’s office to trade votes on other issues for assurances of facilities remaining open, Quinn had staff at committee meetings, and he should know that the budget would have been shot down without the funding for state institutions. “That’s how you put a budget together,” Bayer said. “Now it’s like: ‘Heads I win; tails you lose.’ The governor got many of the things he wanted.”

He criticized Quinn for not making public all the details of his plans for closing facilities and moving staff and prisoners to new locations. “If the department has a plan, we think they have an obligation to present it, to show us that things aren’t going to be out of hand. They haven’t done that. I don’t think they can do it,” Bayer said. “They’re taking places that are already overcrowded and making them even more overcrowded and trying to lead us to believe that it won’t be any more dangerous.” But Solano said the governor’s staff met with union representatives last week, briefed them on the plan and answered their questions. “The closure of multiple facilities is an ongoing process, and the department continues to work with the union as it moves forward with responsibly carrying out the closures.”

Bayer said the union has not ruled out taking legal action if Quinn proceeds with the closures, which AFSCME maintains would create unsafe working environments for some of its members. “We’re exploring all options,” Bayer said. “We’re very concerned about the dangers that are going to be exacerbated by this move.”

Budget not the only thing in limbo

By Hilary Russell
Just as the state’s operating budget is in limbo with five days left in the fiscal year, many substantive bills were left in the lurch at the end of the regularly scheduled spring session. The following is a list of measures that Illinois Issues magazine covered in our monthly “legislative checklist” throughout the spring. See the full list in the July/August print edition. In the meantime, here is a list of bills that stalled but that could come up in this fall’s or next spring’s legislative sessions:

HJRCA 31 The constitutional amendment sponsored by Rep. Jack Franks, a Morengo Democrat, would give voters the option to remove a sitting governor from office. The resolution would require voters to decide whether they wanted to change the state’s Constitution to include a so-called “recall” provision. The bill passed the House, but it didn’t get called for a final vote in the Senate. Senate President John Cullerton recently said he would not call the measure for a vote until Gov. Pat Quinn signed another ethics reform measure, HB 7, which would cap the amount individuals, businesses and political organizations could contribute to candidates. Franks’ recall measure doesn’t have to be approved until May 2010, and he said he expects that it would pass without problems before then.

HB 2643, SB 1292 Newly hired state employees and teachers would receive less generous pension benefits than current employees. Quinn proposed the so-called two-tiered pension plan as a way to save the state money in the next fiscal year and to reduce the mounting pension liabilities in the long run. But public employee union members strongly oppose the idea and argue it ultimately won’t save the money projected by the governor’s office. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Kevin McCarthy, an Orland Park Democrat, and Sen. Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat, stalled in both chambers.

SB 1381 A bill allowing the limited use of medical marijuana, sponsored by Sen. Bill Haine, an Alton Democrat, narrowly passed in the Senate, marking the first time in Illinois’ legislative history that such a proposal won approval. The clock ran out before House sponsor Rep. Lou Lang, a Skokie Democrat, presented it to the full chamber. Lang said he didn’t have enough votes to pass it and that he plans to lobby for the bill and could call it in the future.

SB 744, sponsored by Sen. Terry Link, proposed opening new casinos in Chicago, Danville, Rockford and Waukegan, as well as adding gaming positions at existing riverboats and allowing slot machines at horse racing tracks. According to Link, a Waukegan Democrat, the gaming package could generate as much as $1 billion a year. While the Senate approved the measure, the House sponsor, Lang, said he chose not to call the bill and would like to make changes so the bill would not specify where the gaming facilities would have to be built.

HB 2234 would recognize civil unions and give same-sex partners some of the same legal rights, including power-of-attorney, as married couples. Rep. Greg Harris, a Chicago Democrat, sponsored the legislation. It narrowly passed out of committee but wasn’t called on the floor because, Harris said, he didn’t have enough votes to ensure passage. He added that new legislation in Iowa that now legitimizes same-sex marriage could help pave the way for passage of Illinois’ bill in the future; however, Harris’ civil unions measure would not be the same as same-sex marriage.

HB 397 redefines stalking. The measure amends the 1961 criminal code by defining stalking as a behavior intended to terrorize or endanger another person through intimidation or threats. Rep. Dan Brady, a Bloomington Republican, sponsored the measure. The bill stalled in the House. Brady said the measure is undergoing further negotiations between the state’s attorney’s office and the attorney general’s office. He expects to present it again during the 2010 spring session.

HB 2633, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Julie Hamos of Evanston, called for stricter rules to define how and when inmates in minimum- and maximum-security prisons were transferred to Tamms Correctional Center in Alexander County. Questions about the treatment and living conditions of the prisoners prompted Hamos to write the bill, which she said is on hold because a new director recently took over the center. She said she wants to wait to see what kind of changes will come about as a result.

HB 288 proposes that public schools could give students a few moments before class begins to observe a moment of reflection. The bill is sponsored by Rep. John Fritchey, a Chicago Democrat, and Sen. Bill Haine, an Alton Democrat. The moment of reflection would be determined on a school-by-school basis. Fritchey’s definition of a moment of reflection would replace the existing Student Reflection and Student Prayer Act, which requires every school to have a moment of silence during which students could either reflect on the day ahead or pray. Because the law lacked consequences for not observing the moment of silence, some schools observed it while others did not.

Controversy has surrounded the moment of silence issue because federal court deemed it unconstitutional to require public school students to pray during school hours.

The law invited a lawsuit. Fritchey, who voted against the original moment of silence bill, proposed the new version that would remove the “student prayer act” from the name and allow teachers to choose whether to honor the moment.

Haine said the role of the government is to encourage freedom of expression, not force it on individuals who may hold different beliefs, but he said he didn’t know if he could get enough votes for the bill to pass next session.

Legislative panel isn't on board with facility closures

By Jamey Dunn 

A panel of lawmakers voted today to reject Gov. Pat Quinn’s plans to close several state facilities.

The Commission On Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) shot down Quinn’s proposals to close two prisons — a “super-max” security facility in Tamms and a women’s prison in Dwight —  along with Murray Developmental Center in Centralia, a juvenile detention center in Joliet and two Department of Corrections facilities — one in Chicago and one in Peoria — meant to help inmates transition back into society. Quinn’s budget proposal had called for the closure of a total of 14 state institutions.

Many who opposed the closures said that they did not think Quinn’s plans for closing facilities were detailed enough. Rep. Patricia Bellock, a co-chair of the committee, said that she supported closing developmental centers, but she wanted more reassurance that there would be enough community based programs and services to care for those currently in the residential developmental centers. “The comprehensive plan needs to be in place. …When we make a change like this, a huge change that impacts the people’s lives, it has to be done in a correct way,” said Bellock, a Hinsdale Republican. Lawmakers gave the same reason for opposing proposed facility closures from Quinn last year.

Rep. Raymond Poe, a Springfield Republican, said that he thinks that alternatives to Quinn’s proposed closures, which the governor's office says would lead to a total of more than 2,300 layoffs, should be explored. Poe said that funding for the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity could be used to stave off the closures and preserve jobs, or Quinn could sign a gaming bill passed last year and bring in more revenue. “We ought to be looking at solutions of how we keep these open. We ought to be looking at solutions of [how] we’re going to pay for it. I think as the legislature, we have thrown out a couple of ideas here, and I’m sure there’s more,” Poe said during today’s hearing.

Sen. Donne Trotter, a budget point man for Senate Democrats, said that lawmakers must face the reality of the state’s budget problems and make unpopular decisions, such as voting to close facilities. “Looking at the $8 billion of debt that we’re in, looking at our pension liability and looking at the things that we must do to get us whole again in this state, this is just a right way of doing that,” Trotter, a Democrat from Chicago, said before voting to close Dwight Correctional Center. Trotter voted against the closure of IDOC adult transition centers.

The group did approve the closure of a Department of Children and Family Services office in Skokie. However, employees from that office would be moved to other nearby DCFS offices. No members of the panel present today voiced opposition to the consolidation.

 The commission’s recommendations are advisory, so Quinn can move forward without the groups’ approval. However, Evanston Democratic Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg, a co-chair of the committee, said that no governor has closed a facility against COGFA’s recommendations. Quinn did not give a clear indication of his next step. “We respect the role of COGFA in the facility closure process, as well as their engaged questioning throughout. We have incorporated a great deal of their input into our facility closure plans. However, we must continue to deal with our budget challenges and make the difficult decisions necessary to restore fiscal stability to Illinois,” said a written statement issued by the governor’s office.

Union officials who represent workers at the institutions and family members of residents at the state’s developmental centers celebrated today’s vote. “We applaud the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability for rejecting Governor Quinn’s wrongful and damaging closure threats,” Anders Lindall, a spokesman for the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31, said in a written statement. “The governor’s push to force individuals with disabilities out of their homes, reduce mental health treatment, jeopardize prison safety, end reentry programs and put thousands of public servants out of work are the wrong priorities for Illinois.”

Moving ahead, the battle over closures will focus on the budgeting process. Will lawmakers include funding for the facilities in the budget they are scheduled to produce later this month? If they do, it would likely mean cuts elsewhere. Quinn could also opt to use his veto pen to cut out any funding for institutions he wants to close. “We call on Gov. Quinn to listen to the commission and withdraw his ill-considered closure plans, and we urge the legislature to make sure all state facilities are fully funded in the [Fiscal Year] 2013 budget,” Lindall said.

Senate approves House budget after adding education spending

By Jamey Dunn and Ashley Griffin

The Illinois Senate approved the House's budget legislation Thursday after some Democrats demanded additional education spending.

The Senate signed off on the House budget after the House ignored budget bills passed by Senate Democrats. Senate Republicans objected to the spending levels in both bills.

The budget contains funding for state facilities that Gov. Pat Quinn had targeted for closure in his budget proposal in February. Quinn called for shutting down several state institutions, including centers for the developmentally disabled, a mental health center and some correctional facilities. The current legislation also contains funding to retool the state’s controversial supermax prison — where prisoners are kept in isolation for up to 23 hours a day — into a less restrictive system.

 Laurie Jo Reynolds, an organizer for Tamms Year Ten, a group pushing for the closure of Tamms, said it is unclear whether the plan would allow prisoners to have enough communal time outside of their cells. “We sort of need to know what they’re talking about when they are talking about refurbishing the prison and retooling it,” she said. Reynolds said that adding a yard and a cafeteria would not be enough to make Tamms a workable medium-security prison. She said other changes would be needed, such as the addition of a common day-room area and classrooms where education and rehabilitation programs could be held.

She noted that Tamms was built for isolation, so it would be difficult to move prisoners around in the way that they are moved in a medium- or low-security prison. “There's so many doors between the wing and the pods [where inmates are kept],” she said. “It’s just not as easy of a facility to let people in the yard or take them out to the cafeteria. It doesn’t seem very cost-efficient to rework it into a medium-security [prison].”

Reynolds said it is an important step that those in favor of keeping Tamms open support the idea of it no longer being a super maximum security prison. “The fundamental premise of [the state] needing a supermax has been destroyed. That admission is a victory in itself. Now we need to have a conversation about: ‘Do we need a new medium-security prison, and can we afford a new medium-security prison?’”

Some Senate Democrats said money should not be spent to keep facilities open when the state is cutting human services and education. “We cannot afford to go backwards, and we don’t have to go backwards. This is all called priorities, and I think the Senate has a better grasp on what the priorities are,” said Sen. Donne Trotter, a budget point man on the Democratic side. “In my mind and many down here, keeping facilities open isn’t a priority.”

Some Senate Democrats refused to vote for the House's K-12 education budget the first time the legislation was called for a vote, and the measure failed. “We should be voting no on this bill because the House sent us a budget with further cuts to education. The House sent us a budget that only added back $50 million more in general state aid,” said Sen. Kimberly Lightford, a Democrat from Maywood. “We put a whole a lot of burden on the local school districts and at the same time continuously underfunded them.” (For more on the spending levels in the House budget, see yesterday's blog.)

“Maybe some members did not get the memo that we don’t have any money,” said Sen. Dan Kotowski, a Democrat from Park Ridge “We are out of money.” But Senate President John Cullerton proposed some ways to find new revenue for education spending. House Bill 5440 would add a 5 percent tax to the gross profits of satellite television providers such as Dish Network and Direct TV. Cullerton said cable providers already pay the fee and that the legislation would bring in about $75 million. He also sponsored House Bill 5342, which would close some corporate tax loopholes for oil companies. He estimated that legislation could bring in $100 million. “Closing loopholes is definitely fair, and I think targeting certain tax credits is appropriate,” Cullerton said during a committee hearing on the legislation.

Senate Bill 2365 would dole out the new revenues According to an analysis from the Democrats:

•  $24.9 million would go toward early childhood education. 
•  $134.7 million would go into general state aid for schools.
•  $15.4 million would go to the Monetary Assistance Program for college students.
•  $24 million would go into the Circuit Breaker program, which provides assistance for the elderly.

Cullerton’s bills passed without Republican votes. “It is just another tax increase. Pass it on to the people who have been nickeled and dimed to death,” said Sen. Dale Righter, Republican from Mattoon. But with the additional education spending, Democrats did not need the Republican votes to pass the bulk of the budget bills. The House's education budget passed on a second floor vote.

Republicans said the budget would set the state up for financial peril when the recently enacted income tax increase starts to roll back in 2015, and they said the spending could prompt a vote to stop the increase from phasing out. “This is yet another brick in the wall of the permanent tax increase,” said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Palatine Republican.

They accused Democrats of running counter to the state’s relatively new Budgeting for Results law by funneling money into programs that do not have proven success. The law is supposed to give preference to programs that can document some level of success at meeting in-house goals. “Either apply this new law in a way that is understandable and explainable, or please stop telling us that it has changed the budgeting process at all,” Murphy said.

The additional education spending would still have to be approved in the House. Trotter said that there is time to get it passed when lawmakers return for session during Fiscal Year 2013, which begins July 1. “Those individuals over there represent the same people we do,” Trotter said. “They’re going to go home, like we are. … And they are going to hear from their constituents that say, 'How could we not fund education?' And I think it’s that kind of pressure that’s going to be put on the [House Speaker Michael Madigan]. The good thing about this legislative process is that we get more than one bite at the apple.”

The strategy is similar to one employed by the Senate last year to get additional human services spending. “Last year, we got a sad, sad budget from the House. They gave us the budget and left town. The Senate felt we had a more responsible budget. We presented it, and it didn’t go anywhere. We came back in the fall in veto session and put in all those things that we said we should have put in in June,” Trotter said.