Rep. Cross sends letter to Speaker Madigan about Thomson Prison
November 25, 2009
Honorable Michael J. Madigan
Speaker of the House
Illinois House of Representatives
300, State House
Springfield, IL 62704
Dear Speaker Madigan:
Starting on November 15, the news that Governor Pat Quinn has offered to sell the Thomson Correctional Center to the federal government for use as a place of detention for alien and non-citizen belligerents in the Global War on Terror has become one of the most salient issues in Illinois. My colleagues in the House Republican Caucus have informed me that they have many questions about this proposed transaction.
We do not oppose a strategy aimed at putting Thomson into full operation as a 1,600-bed conventional maximum-security prison facility, the purpose for which this complex was designed. We strongly support creating the jobs that would be fostered by this move. Many of our members have serious questions about whether this proposed policy move would, in fact, fully utilize Thomson and create these jobs. In addition, we have many other questions about the safety and security of this proposal.
We believe that there ought to be a discussion of these questions. There ought to be an informed debate on whether this is the right move to make, the result of a calm and nonpartisan inquiry into the facts and assumptions behind this proposal and an inquiry into the validity of predictions, generated by the governor’s office, that this transaction would benefit the people of Illinois.
Because of these questions, we request that you exercise your powers under Rule 13 of the Rules of the House of Representatives, Ninety-Sixth General Assembly, and create a Special Committee on the Future of the Thomson Correctional Center. You can do this by letter to the Clerk of the House. We request that this committee be a bipartisan committee, with equal numbers of members from both caucuses of the House. We further request that this committee be asked, in your letter, to study the following specific subjects with respect to the future of the Thomson Correctional Center:
(a) What sort of steps will the federal government and the State of Illinois have to take in order to implement the purchase or lease of the Thomson Correctional Center and what is the time-line in which these steps would be taken? Which of these steps, if any, will require legislative or appropriations action by congress or the legislature?
(b) If the Thomson Correctional Center is sold or leased by the State of Illinois to the federal government, how much money is the federal government likely to pay for it, and what are the recommendations of the Governor Quinn’s administration on how this money should be expended?
(c) What are the projected economic impacts to the Village of Thomson, Carroll County, and Northwest Illinois if this transfer takes place? How many of the personnel at Thomson would be hired civilians from the vicinity, and how many, if any, would be U.S. armed forces personnel reassigned or transferred to this location from elsewhere?
(d) If the federal government took control of the Thomson Correctional Center, how many prisoners and how many detained belligerents do they expect to hold there? Is there agreement, or disagreement, between the number of prisoners and detained belligerents that Illinois expects to come to Thomson, and the number that the federal government expects to send or assign there?
(e) What is the specific legal status of the persons, described as belligerents, who could be assigned to Thomson should this facility fall under the operational control of the federal government?
(f) Does the federal government assert that they can safely hold untried belligerents, many or all of them members of, or affiliated with, terrorist organizations making war against the United States of America, who have not been granted access to a court of law, in the same correctional center as conventional prisoners who are serving sentences of imprisonment as provided by a court of law and who will be released to civilian life within the United States after they have served their sentences?
(g) Is there a significant possibility that after acquiring control over the Thomson Correctional Center and studying the situation, the federal government will decide that mingling belligerent detainees and conventional prisoners in the same prison complex is not a good policy move?
(h) Is there a significant possibility that the federal government could acquire control over Thomson Correctional Center, find that the center can only be safely used as an isolation center for belligerent detainees or as a conventional prison, but not both, and as a result Thomson would be used to hold far fewer people, and would create far fewer jobs, than has been promised?
(i) What sort of public safety issues are raised by the potential custody of members of terrorist organizations on American soil? Why is it asserted that Illinois is a safer place to house these persons then Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?
(j) Would selling the Thomson Correctional Center to the federal government permanently preclude the use of this bed space to house prisoners currently in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections, keeping in mind that our state’s existing correctional centers are severely overcrowded and this overcrowding harms our own incarceration policies and damages the quality of life of our state’s dedicated corrections professionals?
We hope that you will agree that these are essential questions for unbiased and nonpartisan public discussion and inquiry. You may well have other important questions that you want answered. In any case, this inquiry will help preserve the ability of the General Assembly to render an independent judgment on the desirability of this proposed policy without reference to any pressure that may be exerted by the state’s executive branch.
The constitution requires us to gather information and develop an independent pathway of judgment and consent on this policy move proposed by the governor; and you, by taking this step, can help all of us fulfill our constitutional responsibilities.
Sincerely,
Tom Cross
House Republican Leader