Hard time

Illinois is among those states looking for ways to downsize a prison
industry that has been on a growth curve for more than three decades

by Tim Landis

Prisons are the economy in Vienna. Just ask Paul Gage.

At age 82, he’s been mayor of that southern Illinois community of 1,500 for 35 years and is himself a former lieutenant at the nearby Vienna Correctional Center. “We don’t have any other industry,” he says. “They are good jobs at the prisons. People count on retiring from there. They buy cars and they buy houses.”

Vienna isn’t alone. Dozens of small downstate Illinois communities have enjoyed what amounted to a prison construction boom that began in the 1970s and continued well into the 1990s. From 1990 to 2001 alone, the state built or planned 21 prisons, work camps and juvenile detention centers at an estimated cost of $818.7 million. The maximum security Grayville prison, announced last year, offered typical economic incentives to prospective communities: $140 million in state construction spending, 350 construction jobs, 750 corrections jobs and an annual prison budget estimated at $55 million.

In fact, historically, prisons have been seen by this state’s politicians as a significant form of regional economic development. But, faced with the worst budget crisis since the recession of the early 1990s, Illinois is among those states looking for ways to downsize a prison industry that has been on a growth curve for more than three decades. Now, the fiscal future of many an Illinois community is on a painful crash course with the state’s own worsening bottom line.

And closing prisons is merely one response to a state budget shortfall, which is estimated at $1.3 billion or more for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Gov. George Ryan closed the aging Joliet Correctional Center in March. He proposed closing Vienna Correctional Center and the Valley View Youth Center in St. Charles — though he later substituted Sheridan for Vienna — and he hinted at the need for more cost-cutting measures if the state’s fiscal woes increase. Illinois has plenty of company.

A report released last February by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute details a variety of responses nationwide to a prison budget crunch, including reversal of mandatory sentencing laws and early release of nonviolent offenders, policies that during the booming, tough-on-crime ’90s would have been politically unthinkable.

“In state after state, we found that politicians of both parties were proposing prudent cuts to prison populations and budgets,” says Judith Greene, a New York-based independent policy analyst who conducted the study.

In Illinois, despite the outcry from some corners of the state, shuttering prisons, or holding off on opening them, may be the most politically palatable move. Illinois Department of Corrections officials insist that closing facilities will have no effect on safety. Corrections Director Donald Snyder Jr. contends the staff-to-inmate ratio will only increase from 1-to-4.12 to 1-to-4.43 under the proposed closings. Further, he asserts that the newer, more efficient prisons can safely absorb inmates. And he notes that, after decades of growth, the state’s prison population has begun to decline. That would appear to be the case. As of May, there were 42,500 inmates in the state system, which is down by 3,000 inmates from a year ago.

“In tough economic times, tough decisions must be made. But we will never jeopardize the safety and security of our prison system while making these decisions,” he says.

Across the country, though, more fundamental changes are under way. Greene’s study found that $40 billion, or roughly one of every 14 dollars in general revenue funds, was spent on incarcerating 2 million state and county inmates nationwide in 2000. But the trend, she found, is shifting.

Even Louisiana, which has the highest incarceration rate in the country, has begun considering policies that will reduce the need to build more prisons. California, Florida, Michigan and Ohio are among states that already have approved plans to divert nonviolent drug offenders to alternative treatment programs.

Such a move could save money. Backers of the California reforms, for example, estimate that 36,000 prisoners, and probation and parole violators, will be diverted from prisons at a savings of up to $150 million a year.

But in Illinois, a plan to save dollars by privatizing prison services has roused the most political controversy. The governor’s proposal to turn dietary services for 36 correctional facilities, including 27 adult prisons, over to private contractors amounted to fighting words for union employees and their supporters in the Illinois General Assembly, who have long viewed privatization as a threat to jobs and safety.

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which took the plan for early closure of Vienna and Valley View to court, went to court again, contending that privatization would threaten security while saving little if any money.

“You have to have a trained and professional security force there,” says Buddy Maupin, regional director for AFSCME Council 31, which represents correctional workers throughout the state. “The kitchen is the most dangerous place in the prison. You have inmates with access to food, fuels and knives.”

The legal maneuvering over downsizing and privatizing corrections was still under way in mid-May. And the governor could veto a measure lawmakers approved that would prohibit private food service in prisons. But whatever the outcome in the judicial and legislative arenas, the policy — and political — debate on these issues is unlikely to end anytime soon in a state where unions hold strong sway. In fact, the food service proposal became such a hot-button issue that use of the word “privatization” is avoided by the corrections department in favor of the less dramatic “contracting for services.”

“We never would have done this if it weren’t for budget cuts,” says corrections spokesman Brian Fairchild. The department estimates the use of private food service contractors would save $2 million in the remainder of this fiscal year and at least $15 million over next fiscal year.

Yet the current debate over privatizing dietary service merely breathes new life into an old issue, one that underlay the prison expansion begun in the 1970s during former Gov. James R. Thompson’s administration. In point of fact, private companies have been providing services in Illinois prisons for years, including health care, drug treatment, education and, in the case of the recently closed Joliet prison, food service.

For instance, the state expects to pay $86.4 million to private prison health care providers in this fiscal year. Spending for fiscal year 2003 is expected to reach $90 million. Meanwhile, current fiscal year spending on substance abuse programs is estimated at $10.4 million. Another $19 million will be spent on education programs. As for dietary contracts, the state will spend just over $2 million this fiscal year for services at nine “adult transition centers,” commonly called halfway houses.

Corrections officials cite health care as evidence that privatization of certain services can work. They also point to the state’s experience with private food services at the Joliet prison.

AFSCME officials maintain, however, that the dietary program at Joliet was fraught with security violations ranging from missing utensils to lack of proper inmate supervision. “We had a history of troubles there,” Maupin contends.

Such labor/management disputes are common, even with the relatively limited privatization typical of Illinois prisons, says Ernest Cowles, interim executive director of the Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Cowles and senior researcher Laura Dorman conducted a study two years ago of privately provided substance abuse treatment programs at the St. Charles juvenile detention facility. He says privatization can provide more flexibility in the operation of state prisons, but the expectations of private treatment providers and security-minded corrections officials were sometimes at odds.

“These different groups operate in different spheres,” he says. “It gets back to custody and security. If you read the mission statement [of corrections], it’s very clear what they’re all about. It comes down to serving different masters.”

Illinois corrections officials have sought to assure opponents that private providers, including dietary service workers, would be subject to the same security and accountability as required of traditional corrections employees.

But while safety is always an issue, there are other concerns. Cowles, who holds a doctorate in criminology and was deputy director of the Missouri Department of Corrections from 1985 to 1989, helped oversee that state’s shift to private medical services, a move made necessary to assure staffing. “It became very difficult,” he says, “to recruit to medical positions to work in a prison environment.”

Attitudes toward prison privatization do vary widely from state to state. Texas has been among the most aggressive, even allowing speculative construction of prisons by private contractors. Nebraska last year passed legislation that set guidelines for private construction and operations of prisons.

Though states are considering privatization as a way to save money, it’s clear that prison contractors do benefit from the strategy. The nation’s largest operator of private correctional facilities, Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America, manages 61 prisons and detention centers with a capacity of 60,000 beds in 21 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. CCA, which announced contracts in December to accept inmates from Kansas and Wyoming at a company prison in Colorado, reported revenue of $980.7 million for 2001 and assets of $1.9 billion. Indeed, the company is so profitable that it trades on the New York Stock Exchange.

Still, a survey conducted by the Illinois Department of Corrections prior to issuing the proposal to privatize dietary services found that most states, like Illinois, confine private contracts to medical care, substance abuse treatment, food services and education.

At the same time, there are disputes over potential cost savings for states. A frequently cited University of Connecticut study of privatization concluded the “realistic range” of savings from private contracting of prison services is 5 percent to 15 percent, depending on the type of service provided. The study points out that costs also must be weighed against such factors as quality of operations, security, liability and accountability.

In fact, Cowles says cost cutting is only one element of privatization, and may not be the most important. “I think the jury is still out on the cost issues. Illinois has been very cautious thus far.”

As in Missouri, Cowles says, the greater difficulty has been the blending of security with the profit motive in a prison environment. “The primary goal of a private company is profit. If they’re not making a profit, they’re not going to be around very long.”

Given the influence of organized labor in Illinois, this state is unlikely to turn much of its prison system over to private contractors anytime soon. Nevertheless, given the state’s current financial outlook, it’s likely that privatization of some services, more prison closings and, perhaps, restructuring of sentences for some nonviolent offenders will continue to be part of the policy discussion well into the foreseeable future.

But such debates are little consolation in Vienna, where the combined work force of 815 at the Vienna Correctional Center and the adjoining medium security Shawnee Correctional Center makes prisons one of the region’s largest employers. Thecommunity reacted to the proposed closing of the minimum security prison with rallies, a bus trip to Springfield to lobby legislators and “Save Vienna Prison” signs sprinkled throughout the local countryside.

Gage argues prison employment has helped spark growth in the community in the past decade, including new hotels, restaurants and a park. Prison employment also helps support two local car dealerships. For him, the downside in these potential correctional strategies can be stated simply: “It would hurt us real bad.”

Illinois Issues,June 2002

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