November 15, 2009

A murderer is a murderer.

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Rosie Rojas, from Fulton, serves up a coffee refill to Dave, left, and Kay Lawton of Thomson, at the Sunrise Restaurant in Thomson. The restaurant adjoins a motel only a few hundred yards from the exterior wall of the Thomson Correctional Center. (Lane Christiansen/Chicago Tribune)

“I don’t want (enemy combatants) walking the street, so they have to go some place,” said [Gary] Harris, 64. “Might as well come here.”

“A murderer is a murderer no matter where he’s from,” [Thomson Village President Jerry "Duke"] Hebeler said. “That’s the way I look at it.”

My neighbors down the road apiece discuss news that the federal government seems interested in transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the Thomson [Illinois] Correctional Center.

posted by in business, economics, local, opinion, society | * | 6 comments 

comments

  1. Sheila Ryan on November 15th, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    The twin dreams of every hard-strapped rural area I’ve lived in are these: Prisons! And — Tourism!

    Phil, I just bet those folks in Ismay, Montana were not only dreaming of tourist dollars raining down from a “Joe, Montana” bonanza.

    I bet they were just itching for a penitentiary.

  2. Sheila Ryan on November 15th, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    After holding out hope that the sprawling $145 million prison might improve the economic conditions in this remote area of the state, residents say any prisoners would be a welcomed sight.

    “It would help the businesses here, and God knows we could use that,” said Kay Lawton, 59, a Thomson resident. “It doesn’t matter to me who they bring here.”

  3. Cindy Scroggins on November 15th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    Triste. Y hermoso.

  4. Sheila Ryan on November 15th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    Claro.

  5. Rick Neece on November 15th, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    itching for a penitentiary

  6. Sheila Ryan on November 15th, 2009 at 3:36 pm

    Aching to get all penitent.

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