Tom Kocal

Tom Kocal, chairman of the Carroll County Prison Focus Group, said he has seen estimates that the prison will eventually hire a total of 750 employees, and that 20 to 25 percent of those employees will be local hires.
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Regardless of the number of hires, Kocal said the fact that the prison is finally going to fully open is great news for Carroll County.The prison is expected to generate an annual payroll of $35 million, and its presence will have a positive impact on the county's property tax revenue, sales tax revenue, gasoline sales, and more, Kocal said.

Carroll County residents have been waiting approximately eight years for the prison to fully open, Kocal said.Construction was completed on the facility in 2000, he said.

In 2002, the 1,200-bed prison opened on a limited basis with some staff, officials said.Prisoners weren't brought in until around 2006, Kocal said.The facility currently has approximately 77 employees and about 140 inmates.These numbers are expected to significantly increase when the facility fully opens next year.

The inmates currently at the facility are primarily minimum security prisoners, Kocal said.The new inmates that will be added when the prison fully opens next year will be mostly maximum security inmates, Kocal said.

"In some ways, I'll believe it when I see it," Kocal said of the upcoming opening.

By Tom Kocal, TKocal@PACC-news.com

Kocal, who also serves as chairman of the Carroll County Prison Focus Group, said opening the Thomson prison while keeping other Illinois prisons open would create a safer work environment for corrections employees because it would reduce the ratio of inmates to guards.

Kocal said it's unfortunate that the issue has become political.

"If you could get beyond the politics, things would probably be going a lot smoother," he said.

Tom Kocal - Lanark/Savanna

Tom Kocal, president of the Carroll County Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy and Lanark publisher, presented information showing non-supermax prisons are operating at an average of 150 percent above capacity.

MOUNT CARROLL - The $140 million Thomson Correctional Center probably will stay shuttered in 2005, said Tom Kocal, chairman of the Carroll County Comprehensive Economic Development Survey.

The unopened prison is not just a Carroll County economic development problem; everyone in the state should be up in arms about it, Kocal said.

Kocal told the Carroll County Board's Planning and Development Committee on Wednesday morning that his group is studying maximum-security prisons across the state to see whether they are overcrowded.

"We see some issues ... about the logic of operating overcrowded prisons," he said.

If the state were more creative in their thinking they would see the benefit of opening the Thomson prison, he said.
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The CEDS group is in favor of a county administrator who will have economic development duties, Kocal said.