All three State Correctional facilities in the area are housing well over the number of prisoners they were designed to handle. The Centralia Correctional Center currently has 1,534 inmates, 161 percent over the design capacity of 950.
The Big Muddy Correctional Center at Ina has 1,922 inmates, 202-percent of the design capacity population of 952.
The Vandalia Correctional Center has 1,720 inmates, 156-percent of the design capacity of 1,100. Statewide, Illinois prisons have 15,000 more inmates than they were designed to hold.
The Department of Corrections say even though all the prisons are well over their design capacity, they are within the prisons' "operational capacity" even as some inmates are held in non-traditional areas such as gymnasiums.
Meanwhile, some Illinois lawmakers have been meeting with the Governor's staff in hopes of coming up with a way to address prison overcrowding by the end of the spring session. They include alternatives to incarceration, such as treatment instead of prison for low-level drug offenders.
A spokesperson for Governor Pat Quinn says he is working with lawmakers for'safe, sustainable prisons'. The prison population has grown by seven percent in two years, since Democratic Governor Pat Quinn shut down an early release program for good conduct after the AP reported a secret plan that pushed inmates out even faster.
Some of those released under the program committed more crimes. 48,620 are currently incarcerated in the state's prison system. - http://goo.gl/O8msM
