The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Appreciates The Appreciation
Dear Editor,
I want to share a letter we received commending our staff at Oak Lane. They put in many long days and hours yet manage to keep a warm smile and give a caring hand to our residents. Too often we take others for granted. It's nice when others take time out to send a simple "thank you", commending our staff.
We appreciate the residents and their family support and truly feel as if we are all family at Oak Lane.
Sincerely,
Richard Clifton,
Administrator
Oak Lane Nursing & Rehab
Stronghurst
Oak Lane Nursing & Rehab
Dear Richard,
I just wanted to take a few moments and express my thanks to yourself and the entire staff of Oak Lane for the excellent care afforded my Uncle, Corky Wunnenberg. While often times we hear of the neglect and the mistreatment of occupants of nursing home care, this is certainly not the case with Oak Lane. The administration and caregivers provided the most personal, respectful, professional, and courteous care to Corky.
As you may have been well aware, Corky was honest to a fault; had he any reservations or constructive criticism of care, you would have been advised. He always had praise for the members of the staff.
Each time I was visiting him he would always make a point of introducing, or pointing out, the various employees.
He knew each by name, fun facts about their personal lives and he always shared kind comments about each employee.
He always expressed his sincere appreciation for all the care delivered to each person whose home had become Oak Lane.
I did not expect Oak Lane to be Corky's final home, but he could not have picked a better place to spend the last nine months of his life.
If you ever need a referral, or a testament to the excellent services provided by your organization, please do not hesitate to call or write. On behalf of Corky and his entire family, thank you!
Sincerely,
Craig C. Voelker
Corky Wunnenberg's nephew
Help Would Be Appreciated
Dear Editor,
What a great community we live in! With all the election ups and downs over the past several weeks, there is good news to report. We have some very generous individuals, church groups and organizations in the county.
Over the summer several donations were made to the Henderson County Health Department food pantry. Thanks to these donations we were able to help many out with a little extra food for the table. Unfortunately, there is still a lot to do. Each month the demand increases.
We need many more monetary donations and food items to keep up with the demand. We also need volunteers with good backs to help with shopping for the food.
If someone has a truck and would transport the food (all non-perishable food items) from Burlington to Gladstone for us, that would be very helpful also.
If you would like to donate food, money, your time or drive your truck for the food pantry, call Gloria Short at the Henderson County Health Department, 309-627-2812.
Sincerely,
Gloria Short,
Program Manager
Appreciates Committee of Ten Backing
Dear Editor,
On Saturday, October 23, the Committee of Ten sponsored a fund raising auction at Carthage Primary School to raise money for the committee's expenses. The number of bidders was small, but the amount of money raised was a huge success because of the people who attended. They came to bid, support the cause and have fun.
The auction was not only a success because of the buyers, but with the help of those who donated items for sale, the volunteer auctioneers, Lester Branch and Dan Sullivan and the Hancock County Pork Producers and R and D Foods who fixed the meal.
We appreciate everything that has been done to support the committee, because we believe this is a worthwhile effort.
Rex Johnson,
La Harpe
Committee of Ten
Marketing Chairman
Where Is Your School Money
Dear Editor,
As I read the Quill each week concerning the shortage of school money and the misguided need to consolidate good, small schools to single, large schools, I can only be amazed that so many can be so easily confounded. Why can't you keep your schools open? Are you all paying less tax money? Where are your tax dollars going if not to education? Examine the cold, hard truth honestly and decide for yourself where the education money is going.
Public policies made in Springfield and Washington can easily take on a life of their own. Once prison operators, prison employee unions and community tax collectors learned they could profit from harsh, lock "em up drug control laws, a powerful political force was born to keep prisons full. Here is how this blueprint fuels America's ongoing war against drugs.
Inmate Overload. During the 1980's and 1990's tough-on-crime policies, especially drug control laws, overfilled America's prisons. State and federal prisons held only 315,974 inmates in 1980. By 2000, that number had skyrocketed to 1,321,137. When inmates in city and county jails are added, America's total prison population topped two million in 2002.
Prisons, however, are not reserved for violent offenders. In 2002, for example, 1,235,700 simple drug possession arrests were made in the U.S. - about one-half of them for possession of marijuana. While not all of those arrested end up behind bars, the rush to lock up non-violent offenders was, in large part responsible for setting off America's prison building boom.
Prison Boom. By tracing the 1980-2000 prison expansion, a new study done by Sarah Lawrence and Jeremy Travis at the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center in Washington tracks how prisons became a growth industry in Illinois. In, The New Landscape of Imprisonment: Mapping America's Prison Expansion, they found that "Of the 102 counties in Illinois, 25 gained at least one prison during the 1980's and the 1990's."
In 1979, only 12 state and federal prisons operated in Illinois. Between 1979 and 2000, more than one new prison was added every year. By 2000, Illinois had 40 state and federal prisons operating throughout the state, including at least one new prison in Morgan, Logan, Christian, Montgomery, Tazwell, Rock Island, Knox, Peoria, Adams, St. Claire, Marion, Dixon, Vermillion, Jefferson, Williamson, Crawford, Lee and Kankakee Counties.
Aboard the gravy train. The U.S. Census counts prisoners where they are incarcerated, and both federal and state agencies distribute funds based on this census data. The more prisoners counted in a town or county, the bigger will be its share of tax funded goodies from Washington and Springfield.
This gravy train includes a slice of $200 billion a year in formula grants from Washington to all state and local governments for Medicaid, foster care, adoption assistance and 169 other programs. In addition, the same data is used to allocate state funds for community health services, road construction, law enforcement and public libraries.
Regular pay checks roll in 15,397 prison employees in Illinois. And don't forget the income of employees of private firms that directly sell food, fuel, clothing and furniture to prisons. No wonder Illinois towns become addicted to this prison economy.
Prison politics. Spreading prisons across Illinois can actually perpetuate a large prison population. As more towns become economically dependent on state prisons holding more than 44,348 inmates in 2002, the greater is the likelihood grassroots support will grow for politicians who favor putting non-violent people behind bars. After all, it's in the self interest of these towns to keep their prisons full and their local economies booming.
As the number of inmates goes up, so does the number, and political power, of prison guards. In 2000, for example, the 31,000 member California Correctional Peace Officers Association used its $7 million a year political action fund to run TV ads against Proposition 36. Why? Prop. 36 called for sending non-violent drug users to treatment facilities, not to jail, and promised to reduce both the state's prison population and the number of prison guard jobs. Despite the union's ads, Prop. 36 became law with a 61% favorable vote.
When prisons boom, everyone wins except the non-violent inmates and the taxpayers. Politicians in Springfield and Washington can show how tough they are on crime. Private prison operators and their investors make money. Prison guards pay off their mortgage and support local businesses. Even the local tax collector gets his cut.
Think about it. The self-perpetuating prison economy was launched due to an exaggerated fear of non-violent drug users, and a failure to treat people rather than lock them up. But now that the jailhouse economy is going strong, the political reforms needed to abandon this old drug war mentality will be much harder, if not impossible, to get through the legislatures in Springfield and Washington.
Chances are taxpayers are stuck with the cost of keeping two million men and women behind bars well into the future - not because justice demands it, but because the economic benefits of the prison business are working to keep it that way.
A clear example would be the new mutli-million dollar juvenile prison built in Rushville. How many local school would those millions of tax dollars keep financially stable, as well as expand and improve?
Simply put, your tax money is fueling the prison industry instead of education, and now you are stuck with the situation until the voting public causes change.
Robert L. Jones
Federal Correctional Center, Pekin
Ronald Fraser, Ph.D.