Blagojevich foists yet another prison scheme

| Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Close the Illinois state prison at Pontiac. No, wait. Close the prison at Vandalia. How about Stateville? OK, target Pontiac again.

 Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich substitutes childlike indecision for governance, flitting from scheme to scheme in an attempt to find inmates to put in Illinois’ newest, best designed, most expensive, and mostly empty maximum security prison in Thomson, Ill.

We would love to see Illinois make wise use of this nearby prison. But it must be as part of an efficient corrections plan, not a detached governor’s fleeting notions. Those conflicting plans expressed over the past three years must seem like cruel hoaxes to those living in Pontiac, Vandalia and Joliet. Each time the governor starts to ponder, those communities rally to respond to a very real economic threat presented by the loss of a prison.

The governor’s indecision keeps talk focused on the economic aspects of a prison. Let us restate for the record: prisons should not be a part of any community’s economic development plan. While prisons have definite economic implications, they serve a public safety role first and foremost. That role gets diminished when prisons are pitched as economic saviors for distressed communities.  Thomson residents know all about it. Their town’s prison was awarded as an economic plum by former Gov. George Ryan, who had no plan for actually using the prison.

While Gov. Blagojevich’s latest scheme might bode well for Thomson and our community, it still is a scheme, not a plan. And this governor abandons schemes almost as quickly as he adopts them.