Board supports Thomson prison sale: Member who disagrees 
worried about security

MOUNT CARROLL – Believing that it would help spur economic development, the Carroll County board has passed a resolution stating its support for selling Thomson Correctional Center to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The vote was 12-1.

“We support it; from an economic standpoint it would be a tremendous economic benefit ...  to the area,” board member Kurt Dreger said Friday. “It’s the best thing since sliced bread.

“When you have a prison in your backyard, it’s no different than a General Motors. It’s a job-creator.”

The prison reportedly is at the top of a list of places to house suspected terrorists being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, once the Obama administration shuts the prison there down and brings the detainees to U.S. soil to be adjudicated.

The Bureau of Prisons is considering buying the maximum security, 1,600-bed facility, using  a portion for the 100 or so detainees and the rest to house federal prisoners.

Officials estimate that would create 2,300 to 3,200 jobs, 1,800 of which would be within the prison.

Board member Joyce Schubert cast the lone nay vote on the issue.

She’s worried about safety and security in Carroll County if the federal government decides to bring detainees to Thomson.

Terrorists could come to the area, Schubert said. “People wouldn’t feel safe like they used to.”

She questions whether a federal prison actually would create jobs for locals, since the  government may bring in its own employees first.

“It won’t be a boom like they’re talking about,” Schubert said.

The state should fully open up Thomson prison, because the state system is overcrowded, she said.

“They owe it to us,” she said. “I don’t understand the logic of the people down there [in Springfield] at all.”

The state-of-the-art prison, which cost more than $140 million to build, has sat nearly vacant since its completion in 2001.

It was built with in part to help ease overcrowding in the state’s prison system, but lack of funds kept it from being opened fully, and the economic benefit promised to the town of less than 500 never was realized.

Officials have said it would cost about $50 million a year to run a fully staffed, at-capacity prison. It costs $2 million a year to run now, with a staff of about 80 and about 200 minimum-security inmates.