Cook County will lose nearly $88 million in federal benefits over the next decade because almost 26,000 of its residents�78 percent of them African Americans�are being counted in the 2000 census in prisons outside the county.

Under federal regulations, prison inmates are considered residents of the municipalities where they are incarcerated.

Census tallies help determine federal and state funding for education, health care, transportation and other public services. The inmate population also increases a town�s population and lowers its per capita income, making it eligible for additional federal funds in some programs.

But little, if any, of those funds go directly to the prisoners, U.S. Census Bureau officials said.

The only benefit to prisoners is �better infrastructure� such as roads and sewers in the communities where they are incarcerated, said Ed Gore, assistant division chief for field programs for the census bureau.

�I�d be stretching to make an argument that there�s a direct benefit to the prisoners themselves,� Gore said.

Census money should go to the inmates� hometowns, said Benny Lee, coordinator of the Cornell Interventions Criminal Justice Program, a Chicago-based organization that assists former prisoners.

�We�re preparing them to return to Chicago, not to function there,� said Lee, a former inmate of Pontiac and Stateville correctional centers.

Without money to help inmates with job training, education and housing, they will likely end up back in prison, he added.

In Illinois, many of the towns with large prison populations are predominantly white, yet 65.1 percent of the state�s adult inmates are African American, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. Cook County residents make up nearly 63 percent of the prison population.

In 1990, the city of Crest Hill in Will County had a population of 10,643, including prisoners housed at Stateville Correctional Center. While the town is 75 percent white, 71 percent of Stateville�s 2,600 inmates are African American and 13 percent are Hispanic.

Crest Hill earns about $270,000 each year because of its prison population, Mayor Donald L. Randich said. The money goes into the city�s general fund. �It�s for the city to use, not the Department of Corrections. We use it as we see fit,� he said.

The prison does not impose any additional costs on the city, Randich said, adding that the corrections department is Crest Hill�s largest sewer customer.

Robert Karls, city administrator in downstate Pontiac, said the city received $120,000 annually, or $1.2 million over the last 10 years, because of the 1,600 inmates at Pontiac Correctional Center. The money pays for city infrastructure improvements and operating costs.

Pontiac�s 1990 population, including the prisoners, was 11,428. The town is 82 percent white; the prison population is 67 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic. About 70 percent of the inmates are from Cook County.

The prison also is Pontiac�s second largest employer, with 900 workers. �Number one, they are a major employer and they�re a steady employer. They�re pretty well insulated from economic downturn,� Karls said.

Prisoners in Illinois spend an average of 1.8 years behind bars, according to data from the Department of Corrections. Most inmates return to their hometowns after their release, and few relatives move downstate to be closer to the prisoners, Lee said.

�Those folks should in fact be counted in their home cities,� said Diane Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Safer Foundation, a Chicago nonprofit that provides services to former inmates and prisoners in work-release programs.

�That�s where they�re going to spend the preponderance of those 10 years.�

Contributing: Alden K. Loury.