The village of Sheridan, about a 70-mile drive west of the Loop, is a picturesque small town in a mostly rural area that prides itself on being a summer recreation destination, the gateway to the Fox River Dells. Freight trains still rumble through the village a block north of the main street, and from the main crossing you can spot the library, the school, the grocery store, three taverns, and two flashing stoplights–one for each gas station. But you can’t see the Sheridan Correctional Center. And if you don’t see the prison you don’t really see Sheridan.
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The squat cluster of buildings wrapped in security fencing and barbed wire just a mile south of Sheridan has long been the community’s economic engine. Built in 1941 as a juvenile facility, it operated as the Illinois State Reformatory at Sheridan until the mid-50s, when it became the Illinois Industrial School for Boys. In 1973 the Illinois Department of Corrections converted it to a medium-security facility for men, which is what it was when it closed last year.
The state pays Sheridan its annual share of the motor-fuel tax and state income tax based on its population. Al Rucker, the mayor in 1990 and now a village trustee, says that each resident is currently good for about $97 a year, though he adds that the rate has been as much as $120 per “man, woman, child, or prisoner” in years past. This makes the approximate value of the prison population to Sheridan $145,500, or 38 percent of the total village budget.
The census states that 37.2 percent of the village’s residents are African-American, though driving through Sheridan at 3 PM on a school day you’d be hard-pressed to spot any black kids–97 percent of the children who stream out of Sheridan Elementary School are white. Only three of the students are black. Obviously, most of the village’s black population was in the prison. The latest count by the Department of Corrections shows that its inmate population is 62 percent black (the state’s population is only 15 percent black).
When Blagojevich pledged in April to reopen the prison next year, Yuhas was wary. He still looks scared. “I didn’t think they’d ever close that thing down,” he says. “It seemed like it’s been there forever. But when you see United, American…” His voice trails off, and he shakes his head.
