Quinn gets go-ahead to close prisons

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Pat Quinn says two major prisons and other state facilities will be closed within weeks after a judge’s order.

An Alexander County judge on Wednesday dissolved an injunction stopping the closures. The Illinois Supreme Court last week ordered that the injunction be lifted.

Quinn says shuttering the high-security Tamms prison, the women’s lockup in Dwight and others makes taxpayers “the real winners today.”

He says the state can’t afford the facilities in a budget crisis and that many are underutilized.

A lawsuit by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees delayed the closures. An AFSCME spokesman said Wednesday night that the closures make the remaining prisons “more dangerous for employees, inmates and the public.”