PONTIAC AREA LEADERS UNITED ON DESIRE TO KEEP PONTIAC CORRECTIONAL FACILITY OPEN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                            May 06, 2008/rd

PONTIAC, IL – State Senator Dan Rutherford (R-Pontiac), Representatives Shane Cultra (R- Onarga) and Keith Sommer (R-Morton) were joined by Pontiac and Livingston County area officials to express a united voice in opposition to a Blagojevich Administration plan to close the Pontiac Correctional Center.

“I am disappointed that the Governor would consider closing Pontiac Correctional Center when the Illinois prison system is already overcrowded. Pontiac is a modern facility. It’s serving its intended purpose,” Rutherford said. “Such a move will be detrimental to the public safety needs of Corrections and dramatically harmful to the Central Illinois economy.” 

The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) sent notice that it is their intention to close the Pontiac Correctional Facility. IDOC had originally planned to close the ‘Roundhouse’ facility located at the Stateville Correctional Center at an estimated cost savings of $31 million. However, on May 5, IDOC made public a letter stating that plans had changed and now the Pontiac facility was to be closed. The estimated savings of closing Pontiac are only a small fraction of the original plan to shutter the Stateville location.

Representative Cultra echoed the comments of the Senator, “I believe that it would not be prudent policy to close the Pontiac Correctional Center,” said Cultra. “Crime rates are not dropping, prison populations are not dropping, what good could come of the State of Illinois closing Pontiac?”

Representative Sommer discussed the impact on the employees of Pontiac Correctional Center. “When the Governor first took office, he promised to be a friend to the working men and women of Illinois. However, he is not acting like a friend to the working men and women of Pontiac Correctional Center,” Sommer said. “I would invite the Governor to travel to Pontiac and tour the facility and walk in the same shoes as the employees of Pontiac.”

State and local leaders also criticized the plan’s lack of research about the economic impact if Pontiac Correctional closed. The facility employs approximately 600 people and houses over 1,600 inmates. Local leaders also expressed their support for the legislative delegation’s plan to call for a moratorium on state facility closures until economic and policy decisions can be adequately studied.

Rutherford stressed that only an announcement has been made and that any further plans must be submitted to the Commission on Forecasting and Accountability. The budgetary implications of a Pontiac closure will also be debated in the coming months by the Illinois General Assembly and are also subject to the State Facilities Closure Act. “We are greatly concerned about the future of Pontiac Correctional Center,” Rutherford concluded.

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