Illinois spends $750K a year on closed prison, and some politicians want to spend millions reopening it

Effective reform will not include opening old prisons or throwing taxpayer dollars toward building new ones.

Illinois is spending $750,000 a year on the Tamms Correctional Center – even though the prison officially closed in January 2013, according to a recent report published by The Southern.

The $750,000 reportedly goes toward “covering utility costs and maintenance, and paying security guards to prevent vandalism and to serve as fire watch.”

Most people would reasonably expect Illinois to stop spending any money – let alone that much – on facilities that aren’t being used for any productive purpose.

But as bad as the current waste at Tamms is, some state lawmakers are pushing to waste even more money by reopening the facility.

Illinois lawmakers have introduced a resolution that encourages the governor and the Illinois Department of Corrections, or IDOC, to open the corrections center again, arguing it would help alleviate overcrowding and safety issues in the Illinois prison system.

But backtracking on Tamms would be a major mistake.

It’s true that Illinois prisons face a challenge with overcrowding. But a research report by the nonpartisan John Howard Association explains Tamms was only designed to hold up to 502 maximum-security inmates and 202 minimum-security inmates. When Tamms closed in 2013, it held less than 400 inmates, according to the report. Even if one assumed it would hold its maximum of 704 inmates – and there’s no reason to assume that, since it only held approximately 400 inmates when it closed – moving a mere 704 inmates from a population of nearly 49,000 will do little to fix the overcrowding problem at Illinois’ 25 prisons.

And given the state’s financial straits, reopening a prison would be fiscally irresponsible. Tamms had an average annual cost of $64,805 per inmate – the highest cost of any IDOC facility. Reopening would be even more expensive, since the facility was already “gutted” when it shut down in early 2013. IDOC hauled out all of the equipment that had been in Tamms previously. Buying new equipment to replace what was moved out would undoubtedly cost millions more beyond the already substantial cost of running a prison that’s already operating.

There are other, more cost-effective ways to address the safety problems posed by overcrowding. Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed budget includes hiring hundreds of new corrections officers to help manage the state’s prison population and cut back on the substantial overtime hours corrections officers currently work.

More directly, Illinois can address its overcrowding issue by simply incarcerating fewer people for nonviolent offenses. Rauner’s Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform has set the goal of reducing the prison population by 25 percent come 2025. There’s no one simple fix to reach this goal, but several polices can help. For example, the state should continue to expand the Adult Redeploy Illinois program, which diverts nonviolent offenders from the prison system and places them into community-level treatment programs for drug abuse and mental-health issues. The program has already saved the state nearly $50 million that would have otherwise been spent on incarceration.

Another important reform would be to remove occupational-licensing restrictions that keep ex-offenders away from good-paying jobs. Nearly half of all offenders return to Illinois prisons within three years. But studies have shown that stable employment and education are the best solutions to helping offenders get their lives back on track and keep away from crime.

The way to effective reform will not include opening old prisons or throwing taxpayer dollars toward building new ones. Real reform will have to come from revising policies that put more people in state prison than is necessary to protect public safety.

As for Tamms, the state should close it completely, stop spending money on a facility that provides no benefit to taxpayers, and sell the property to be used for something else.