Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is going against his predecessor and keeping the Pontiac Correctional Center open. But that decision is drawing a mixed response.

Democratic Senator Mike Jacobs says he learned through a news release that Governor Pat Quinn is scrapping a plan to open the Thomson Correctional Center. Instead he’ll keep open the more than century old Pontiac prison.

JACOBS: What the governor determined to do was keep an old rickety prison open and he’s going to put it together with barbed wire and tape. The Governor should have done the right thing. Not the political thing.

Jacobs says Quinn caved in to pressure from the prison guards’ union and officials from the Pontiac area who said the local economy would be devastated if their prison closed. Jacobs says his region is need of an economic boost, and if the state won’t open the Thomson site it should sell it.
Pontiac Republican Senator Dan Rutherford says he believes the Governor’s decision is based on what’s best for public safety

RUTHERFORD:  Yes it’s an older prison but we’ve invested millions of dollars into that facility. It’s an absolutely state of the art facility that happens to sit on ground that’s one hundred years old.

Rutherford says he wants to see the Thomson prison fully opened as well and supports a comprehensive study of the state’s corrections system.