Volume 3, No.3
Fall 1997

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Archive Articles:
A CPI Primer, or Why the Fuss Over the Consumer Price Index?

Throughout Southern Illinois: Mines Move Out As Prisons Move In

Mass Layoffs

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THROUGHOUT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS: MINES MOVE OUT AS PRISONS MOVE IN
By: Mike Vessell

Is "Old King Coal" being replaced by "Old King Convict?" The general trend across virtually all of Southern Illinois is for coal mines to close and for communities to then enter (often with success) the prison lottery. Ironically, the bad fortune experienced by the coal industry created the economic hardship conditions that played a major role in helping many Southern Illinois communities in attracting a large share of the new correctional centers (including minimum security prisons, juvenile detention centers, and boot camps) awarded by the Department of Corrections over the past several years. This is evidenced by the growing number of correctional facilities created during the period from 1980 to the present: In 1980, there were only three prisons in the Southern Illinois area (south of I-64); by 1998 there will be fourteen.

The Chart at the right paints a very clear picture of the obvious growth of correctional centers in terms of jobs created in the Southernmost 16 counties in Illinois. As mines were closing, jobs in the coal mining industry dropped from 11,113 in 1980 to (an expected) 3,100 in 1998. At the same time, correctional facility jobs increased from 1,500 in 1980 to a projected 3,850 in 1998, as a new prison construction takes place in the area.

Two articles which appeared in previous issues of the Illinois Labor Market Review, Seeing Light at the End of the Tunnel (Fall 1996) and Coal Mining in Illinois (May 1994) chronicled the decline of the coal industry in deep Southern Illinois. For reprints of these articles, contact the editor and read how the Clean Air Act's tougher emission standards which go into effect in the year 2000, coupled with the State's continuing efforts to make coal a cleaner fuel, may be the spark that reignites Illinois' Coal Mining Industry.