Tamms News

Illinois lawmakers served up possible solutions to prison crowding this week, including money to keep penitentiaries open.

Governor Pat Quinn and state legislative leaders say they'll call lawmakers back to Springfield to take another stab at trying to control pension costs that are contributing to the state's deep budget problems.

After a long, frustrating day Wednesday, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan could be making way for public pension reform in Illinois.

Laurie Jo Reynolds, an activist working to close the Tamms Correctional Center in Tamms, hands out a business card outside the House chambers while trying to make contact with lawmakers at the Illinois state Capitol Wednesday in Springfield.

Illinois Department of Corrections officials say inmates displaced by the proposed closing of the prison at Tamms would follow the same strict security rules in new lockups.

Illinois prisons at Tamms and Dwight would stay open in at least one version of the state budget circulating in Springfield.

This is the unspoken argument of legislators who want to save Tamms, the supermax at the southern tip of Illinois.

Downstate news sources are reporting that layoffs have begun at Tamms Correctional Center, the southern Illinois supermax prison, just a few months after Governor Pat Quinn announced plans to close the facility .