A 1995 federal law aimed at eliminating frivolous lawsuits by prisoners slowed the flow of such filings for a decade. Reported in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

But as the prison population increases, so does the workload of government offices charged with defending lawsuits such as this one: Four prisoners claim Pennsylvania inadvertently canceled all of its criminal statutes when it adopted a constitution in 1790. Or Randall Eugene Parran’s claims that as a “child of God,” he’s exempt from government control and taxation.

In the early 1990s, the state defended itself against thousands of such lawsuits, said Sarah Vandenbraak Hart, a former general counsel for the Department of Corrections who was appointed director for the National Institute of Justice, a research agency in the Department of Justice.

“Half of the (federal) court docket was prisoner lawsuits, and almost none of them were successful,” said Hart, who helped write the 1995 federal Prison Litigation Reform Act.

The courts were a means of recreation and retaliation for prisoners because they were exempt from the filing fees that other people pay to start lawsuits. Now prisoners must start paying filing fees after they’ve filed at least three lawsuits that judges rule meritless.

That doesn’t stop the nonsense entirely.

The Sept. 4 lawsuit filed by four prisoners generated 24 filings and rulings on the docket, mostly from a federal magistrate who recommended a judge throw out the lawsuit.

Parran, 24, of Monroeville, who is serving five to 10 years for drug and robbery crimes, claims he’s being held illegally because the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution guarantee his right to be free from “government interference.”

The inmates filed the cases themselves without lawyers.

The Corrections Department has seven salaried attorneys working full-time on prisoner lawsuits, said spokeswoman Susan Bensinger. Inmates filed 462 lawsuits against the department last year.

Margaret Philbin, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh, said 15 federal prosecutors spent 2,737 hours on prisoner lawsuits — or about 8 percent of their time — last year. The state attorney general’s civil litigation unit has 562 open cases filed by prisoners, said spokesman Erik Shirk.

Not all prisoner lawsuits are outrageous, Lynn Branham notes. Branham chaired an American Bar Association task force that looked at the 1995 Prison Litigation Reform Act. The association in 2007 recommended that Congress amend the act.

“There was a lot of talk about frivolous inmate litigation,” she said. “What we didn’t hear about is the greater problem of prisoners whose constitutional rights are violated and aren’t able to gain access to the courts for a variety of reasons.”

Branham and Hart agreed that a study by professor Margo Schlanger at Washington University in St. Louis is the most accurate measure of the law’s effect. Schlanger compared 1995 and 2005 figures to show the act reduced the number of lawsuits filed per inmate by 60 percent.

In recent years, the number of lawsuits increased with the prison population, according to Schlanger’s study and Department of Justice figures. Prisoners filed 54,796 cases nationally in 2008, a 1.6 percent increase from 2007, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Most consist of prisoners complaining about things the average person would complain about if forced into similar circumstances, Branham said. A prisoner suing because a previous inmate smeared feces against walls, for example, is legally frivolous, she said.

“A little bit of sewage on the cells doesn’t make a constitutional violation,” Branham said.

janchavarie Inmate Lawsuits, Pennsylvania

Penn State researchers making end-of-life care for prison inmates are the focus of a $1.27 million grant. Researchers are using the National Institute of Nursing Research grant to develop a comprehensive toolkit of tailored resources for end-of-life care in prisons, assistant professor of nursing Susan Loeb wrote in an e-mail. News reported in the Daily Collegian.

Leaders of the program plan to apply study findings at six different prisons state-wide in an attempt to improve care for inmates reaching the end of their lives, wrote Loeb, the principal investigator for the study.

“Since prisons are among the most restrictive, most complex organizations — prisons are the best context for this study,” Loeb wrote. “Our hope is that findings will benefit not only dying inmates but also others who spend their final days in a complex organization.”

Though the study is still in the early stages, researchers are quickly learning, said Christopher Hollenbeak, associate professor of surgery and health evaluation sciences and an investigator on the study.

“The real goal of it is to come up with a tool in prisons to improve the quality-of-life care,” Hollenbeak said. “We want to provide a toolkit that would be cost-effective as well.”

Current end-of-life prison programs only offer limited low-cost medications. One proposed change is the “buddy system,” where healthy inmates are paired with a terminally ill inmate to help look out for them, Hollenbeak said.

So far, researchers have visited the Philadelphia prison system for a chance to experience what it is like to be in a prison as an inmate, Hollenbeak said. Researchers are also spending time with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in order to understand the prison landscape at all levels, Hollenbeak said.

janchavarie Inmate Health Care, Pennsylvania

Turning closed or partially-used state mental hospitals into state prisons to hold inmates with mental health issues is an idea being kicked around by House lawmakers. Story in the Citizens Voice.

The House Judiciary Committee is exploring whether it makes sense to transfer an estimated 20 percent of the 51,000 state prison inmates with mental health issues from prisons holding a general population to facilities that were once part of an extensive network of state-run institutions for the mentally ill and mentally retarded.

Committee members are pursuing this idea as an alternative to the state corrections department’s plan to transfer 2,000 non-violent state prison inmates to medium-security prisons in Virginia and Michigan for several years.

The department is undertaking the out-of-state transfers to ease overcrowding while three new medium-security prisons are built in Fayette, Centre and Montgomery counties.

There is concern among members that the department’s estimate that the plan will cost Pennsylvania $62 per day for each transferred inmate is too low. This would amount to an estimated $135 million for three years.

The corrections budget could top $2 billion for the first time in fiscal 2010-11, said panel chairman Rep. Thomas Caltagirone, D-Reading, at a meeting last week. While lawmakers have not traditionally challenged corrections spending requests, the continuing fiscal problems facing state government will put a spotlight on any agency seeking large increases, he added.

“We will all be looking to save costs,” Caltagirone said.

Removing 8,000 to 10,000 inmates with mental health issues from the general population could serve as a safety valve to overcrowded conditions, he said.

The state Department of Public Welfare operates three units for inmates with mental issues at Torrance, Warren and Norristown state hospitals. Inmates go to these facilities by order of sentencing judges. A specially trained staff runs the units.

Pennsylvania has closed and downsized many of its state mental hospitals and mental disability centers during the past three decades and placed many former residents in community-based care and living programs. Reusing some of the aging buildings at these facilities would involve environmental remediation work with asbestos removal and security upgrades.

One of the first state mental hospitals to face closure, Retreat in Hunlock Creek, was converted to a state prison for general population inmates in the 1980s.

The corrections department places inmates based on sentencing orders from trial judges, spokeswoman Susan Bensinger said. Therefore, changes in sentencing policies would address the issue lawmakers have raised.

janchavarie Mental Health Issues, Pennsylvania

For 2,000 male Pennsylvania prison inmates, this will be their last Christmas spent relatively close to home until at least 2013. Reported in the Philadelphia Daily News.

In February, the state Department of Corrections – for the first time – will begin shipping inmates to other states to ease record overcrowding in the 27-prison system, Susan McNaughton, a spokeswoman for the department, said yesterday.

The Muskegon (Mich.) Correctional Facility will get 1,000 inmates; another 1,000 will be sent to the Green Rock Correctional Center, in Chatham, Va., she said.

The transfers – a plan decried by inmate advocates in October, when the Daily News reported that prison officials were contemplating the moves – come as the state’s inmate population shows no sign of stabilizing or shrinking.

The system is designed to house about 44,000 inmates but now has more than 51,400, McNaughton said.

“This is a program to reduce the inmate population to a manageable number,” she said. “This is not about saving money.”

Still, the transfers will make a $5.1 million difference. The corrections department will pay Michigan and Virginia $62 per inmate, per day, for an annual cost of $45.2 million, she said. It costs about $69 per inmate, per day to house them in Pennsylvania medium-security prisons.

Corrections Secretary Jeffrey A. Beard made the decision in consultation with Gov. Rendell after Beard and his staff studied proposals from six states and visited several prisons.

Betty Jean Thompson, president of the state chapter of Citizens United to Rehabilitate Errants (CURE), called the decision “cruel and unusual” treatment of inmates and their families.

“I think that this is horrible,” said Thompson, who yesterday e-mailed a protest letter to state lawmakers and civil-rights and inmate activists. “I wish there had been a better way to solve this problem. I just can’t imagine what the families are going through knowing their loved ones are going to be shipped off.”

The Corrections Department said that video-conferencing hook-ups will be made available, but Thompson said that those are no substitute for in-person visits.

McNaughton said that she understood Thompson’s concerns but noted that overcrowded prisons lead to fights and other disruptions that may harm inmates.

“Our secretary is working to prevent these things from happening,” she said. “This is a last resort. It’s not something that we want to do, it’s something that we have to do to maintain safety and security.”

She said that inmates cannot refuse to be transferred but that only those who have received few or no family visits, who have at least three years remaining to serve and who are free of medical, mental and behavioral issues will be transferred.

Pennsylvania’s inmates in Virginia will be housed separately from other inmates. The Michigan facility, which had been slated to close, is empty.

The Corrections Department will send a staffer to both places to monitor contract compliance and to answer inmates’ concerns, McNaughton said.

Corrections officials hope to start bringing inmates back to the state by 2013, if four new prisons that have been approved are up and running.

janchavarie Budgets, Overcrowding, Pennsylvania

A 160-bed male housing addition and new booking center with a separate juvenile processing area are to be completed at Cumberland County Prison in the coming weeks, according to county officials. Reported by The Sentinel.

Construction of all of the cells has been done and everything is under roof at the Middlesex Township facility. Some exterior lighting and landscaping work still needs to be done, but everything appears to be on schedule, said Pat Slattery, the county’s director of capital projects.

Inside, crews are equipping control rooms and getting security systems online. The fit-out of the 3,500-square-foot booking center is also being done. Located on the prison’s east side, it features a gated sally port to transport prisoners and a separate secure public entrance.

There will be both individual and group adult holding cells in addition to the two juvenile holding cells. There are four new housing units with 20 cells and 40 beds each.

“Hopefully by mid-January we will be fully operational,” Warden Earl Reitz said of this $11 million first phase, which will increase inmate capacity by 40 percent.

The county broke ground on the project last August. Construction was in high gear by September 2008, Slattery said, noting that aside from the new construction, a great deal of work was also needed on the prison’s infrastructure.

This included a new emergency generator, demolition of the boiler room and installation of new equipment, installation of new electrical service and replacement of the piping and ductwork for new plumbing and HVAC.

Capacity

While a growing county population and an increase in crime largely drove officials to expand the prison, the age of the facility — which opened in May 1985 — also contributed to the decision. When phase one is completed, two additional phases will be needed to renovate the original section.

Phases two and three will include replacing windows, doors and locks, as well as kitchen and medical suite additions and other renovations to accommodate the increased prison population. In addition, a female housing/work release unit and visitation areas will be expanded.

The second phase is scheduled to start in late summer or early fall next year, Slattery said. The county has not yet bid the project.

It will coincide with the construction of a new county public safety building across the street on Claremont Road, behind the former agricultural extension building and Claremont Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Currently, the public safety department, which includes the 911 call center, is housed in the basement of the prison.

The county broke ground on that project — a 21,000-square-foot standalone building — earlier this month. It is slated to open in May 2011, moving public safety out of the prison.

During phase two of the prison project, male inmates will be moved into the new housing units as remodeling is done in the old sections, Slattery explained.

“We need those beds to do phase two,” he said, noting that the true benefit of the new cells won’t be felt until all of the renovations are completed in the latter phases.

When the project broke ground, it was projected that the entire expansion and renovation would take about five years to complete. Each phase was estimated to take about 450 days.

The prison has a total of 398 beds now. The average daily inmate population for the year is 377, Reitz said. That includes any federal inmates the county might house and female inmates from Perry County — about 45 to 50 at any given time, Reitz noted.

The facility has been running at or near capacity for quite some time, officials noted. Planning discussions to expand began in 2004 and 2005, the warden said.

Inmate costs

As the new housing units come online and prison officials can increase capacity, Reitz said, there will be more opportunities to house inmates from neighboring counties that are experiencing overcrowding, as well as federal inmates.

“That helps offset cost,” he said. Beds are rented at $55 per day for federal inmates.

The cost to hold a single prisoner is about $53 per day, the warden explained, between staff, medical expenses and other operational costs.

With the additional units, the prison will have to increase staff, which now stands at about 120, according to Reitz.

“The staffing investment is substantial,” he said, expecting to stagger new cell openings. “Every 24-hour post requires at least five staff.”

As county population continues to grow in the coming years, the crime rate will inevitably grow with it. Hoping to control the prison population moving forward and get long-term use out of the expansion project, Reitz said, officials will continue to work to enhance intermediate punishment and earned time programs.

Intermediate programs include options such as work release with electronic monitoring. Earned time allows inmates to reduce their sentence by participating in treatment or rehabilitation programs.

“We would have cots in all of the hallways without these programs,” Reitz said.

From 2000 to 2008, criminal dockets filed in the Court of Common Pleas increased 22 percent. DUI cases have tripled in that span, clogging up the courts and the county prison.

At the magisterial district judge level, DUI case filings have increased 45 percent in three years.

janchavarie Jail and Prison Construction, PA Cumberland County

A $250,000 federal grant will help pay for a mental health court that looks at treatment programs before jail time. Story in the Patriot News.

Mentally ill criminal offenders in Dauphin County are closer to having a new avenue for help.

The county has been awarded a $250,000 federal grant to develop a mental health court for mentally ill prisoners.

The court would serve as an alternative judiciary process similar to drug and juvenile courts, county Commissioner Jeff Haste said.

A team including a public defender, the district attorney and pre-trial service representatives would collaborate to assign a treatment program before resorting to jail time, Haste said.

Defendants who are deemed successfully treated could have their criminal charges dismissed or deferred. Those who fail would re-enter the standard judiciary system.

The program would make the county prison system more economical, Haste said.

“Any amount of time we can reduce, whether it be no time in jail or reduced time in jail, helps … the taxpayers,” he said.

About 25 percent of the county’s prison population has been treated for mental illness and more than eight in 10 of those offenders have been imprisoned more than four times.

Mentally ill offenders often spend more days in jail than other offenders — even if they’ve committed the same crime, Haste said. Inmates with mental health problems might be unable to advocate for themselves or serve full sentences because of poor behavior, he said.

Similar mental health courts exist in Northumberland and York counties, Dauphin County spokeswoman Diane McNaughton said.

The grant also would pay for an expansion of jail diversion and re-entry programs, which reduce the number of days an offender with a mental illness and charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor has to spend in prison.

The county agreed in February to match up to $80,000 for the project. Haste couldn’t say when the court will be operational, but many of the pre-trial alternatives the court would enact are already being used for mental health offenders, he said.

The key to the process is not a special courtroom or a mental health judge, but a team of people working on the case, Haste said.

“There are a number of people who come together to develop a plan and take responsibility for an individual,” he said. “The judge then becomes the one who blesses the plan.”

janchavarie Grants, Mental Health Issues, PA Dauphin County

The Lancaster County Prison Board heard a proposal Thursday for a $24.5 million work-release facility that would house almost 400 prisoners. Article from the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal.

The purpose of the facility, it was told, would be to house and train eligible prisoners who would work in community jobs.

Those jobs would provide inmates with a wage they could use to pay for part of their room and board, as well as fines and restitution to victims. The inmates also would learn the skills they need for a productive life when they return to the community.

The board took no action on the proposal for the facility, for which no site has been identified.

Chairman Scott Martin, one of the three county commissioners on the board, said that the board wants to get public input.

The board could take action at its December meeting, by forwarding a recommendation to the commissioners, or it could table the proposal for additional discussion.

The proposal got mixed reactions from prison board members.

Commissioner Craig Lehman said he supports expanding the county’s work-release programs but wondered if the county could do that via a leased facility.

A new work-release facility would be used to extend the life of the current prison, which Lehman thinks is folly.

Instead, the county needs to come to grips with what to do with that “functionally obsolete” building, he said.

“Sooner or later, that jail on King Street is going to make us all go broke,” he said. “It should have been closed 20 years ago.”

District Attorney Craig Stedman noted that a new building will not solve complex problems.

Inmates, he said, often lack both education and motivation. Some are unwilling to even show up for simple appointments.

“That’s the hesitancy I have,” he said.

But prison Warden Vincent Guarini said that the new facility would provide the training and the guidance needed by inmates.

“It’s the combination of everything,” he said. “It’s an organized approach.”

The proposal is the latest of several the board has examined in its quest to address overcrowding at Lancaster County Prison, 625 E. King St., which was designed to house 658 inmates but holds as many as 1,200.

In January, the board heard another report that included several options.

One option was to build a new, 2,158-bed prison that would cost $169.4 million.

Another option was a dual plan featuring the construction of a new, $115.2 million 1,262-bed prison for women, work-release prisoners and re-entry programs, which would leave the current prison to house 529 “hardened offenders.”

This spring, the board formed a work group to explore other options.

While Thursday’s proposal was less expensive than previous options, the price tag does not include the cost of a 15- to 20-acre site that would be needed for the facility. It also does not include staffing costs.

The work group was looking for something “new and different,” said Martin, a member.

Another member, Mark Wilson, the county’s director of adult probation and parole, told the board, “We were looking at the facility to sort of be the next step in what we are doing here.”

Under work release, prisoners are allowed to work outside the prison at jobs in the community, but must return to a secured facility when they are not working.

The county prison currently can handle only about 60 people at a time in its work-release program. That means while many prisoners are made eligible for work release, many don’t have access to it.

And even if they do, many don’t actually have a job, or even the job skills, necessary to make it feasible.

The proposed Community Corrections and Re-Entry Center would use community resources, such as the Lancaster Employment & Training Agency, to provide job training and referrals.

The one-story facility could house 288 men and 84 women, in separate dormitories. They would have access to computers, job training and job counseling.

The inmates would pay a portion of their paychecks for room and board, in addition to paying for child support, fines, costs and restitution.

They would do their own personal laundry and house their work gear in their own lockers.

People who violate the terms of the work-release program would be returned to prison.

Some of the dozen or so people at Thursday’s meeting were supportive of the proposal, saying community job training programs could make the facility work.

Finding willing employers, who could have access to someone if they have problems with workers, also would help, some suggested.

The board paid $15,000 for the proposal, from Kimball, a Cambria County-based engineering and architectural firm. The proposal provided a rationale for the facility, programs, goals, an estimated cost and a detailed floor plan.

Kimball, in association with Carter Goble Lee, also prepared the earlier proposals for the prison board.

janchavarie Economic Issues, Jail and Prison Construction, PA Lancaster County, Work Release

Lawrence County commissioners agreed to increase the number of state prisoners housed at the county jail by 10 to 15. The state pays the county $50 a day to house prisoners. News in The Vindicator.

At their Tuesday meeting, the panel amended its contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to accept a minimum of 60 and maximum of 65 prisoners. Previously, the limit had been 50.

The move could bring the jail an additional $20,000 per month, which is needed in light of the county’s possible budget shortfall for the end of this year, the commissioners said.

The state pays the county $50 per day for each prisoner, which is mostly profit, said Commissioner Steve Craig, who added that it costs the county about an additional $5 in food because the staffing is already in place.

The jail has a 275-bed capacity, but the average census is only about 165. The additional prisoners should be arriving in two to three months.

Though there had been some problems with the state prisoners initially when they discovered that they were given fewer privileges at the county jail, the problems have now been ironed out, Craig said.

The County Prison Board is expected to confirm the move when it meets in December.

janchavarie Budgets, County-State Issues, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s corrections chief says last year’s temporary moratorium on parole compounded the prison overcrowding that may force the state to board hundreds of inmates in other states. Reported on Philly.com.

Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard told a panel of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday that the parole rate began to plummet last year after the first of two highly publicized shootings of police officers in Philadelphia.

Gov. Ed Rendell ordered a two-month moratorium following the second shooting.

Beard says the parole rate is rebounding, but that the more than 51,000 state prison inmates are nearly 2,000 more than the approved capacity of the system.

Even with plans to add new prisons with 8,000 beds by 2013, Beard says boarding prisoners out of state may be necessary in the long term.

janchavarie Overcrowding, PA Philadelphia, Parole

Monroe County PA names 7th warden in 2 years. As reported on WNEP.

Donna Asure, Warden

After two years and six wardens the Monroe County jail has a new person in charge.

The Monroe County prison board didn’t have to go far to find their next warden. Friday morning members chose Republican county commissioner Donna Asure.

She will be the seventh warden at the Monroe County Correctional Facility since 2007.

It’s a role she said will be challenging, especially with the jail’s recent troubled past.

Now the new warden is promising change.

“It’s still very overwhelming right now because I have made a major decision to apply for something that will change my lifestyle and everything that I have done to this point,” said Asure.

Newswatch 16 sat down with newly named prison warden and Monroe County commissioner moments after she got the news.

The 10-year county commissioner and past prison board president beat out three other finalists for the warden spot. Asure has even been serving as the interim warden since the spring.

“We have had no stability out there. There has been no consistency,” the new warden said.

The position of warden has become somewhat of a revolving door over the past few years.

Since 2007 the prison has had six wardens. In March warden David Mauro resigned after being suspended. He had only been on the job for a couple of months.

Before him warden Marlene Chamblee resigned in July, 2008 after only six months in the position.

She had replaced warden David Keenhold who left the job in 2007 after a prison sex scandal. Six corrections officers and a kitchen worker from the Monroe County jail faced charges of sexually abusing inmates the year before.

Asure said it was during that troubled time she wanted to do something to change the prison.

“With the mistakes that were made over the past year-and-a-half we tried to put the right fit into that facility,” Asure said. “They know my management style, both there and here. They know my leadership capabilities and I think it is going to be a great fit.”

With Asure now prison warden a Monroe County judge will appoint her replacement to serve out the remaining two years of her term as Monroe County commissioner.

janchavarie PA Monroe County, Personnel Issues

Pennsylvania is exploring the idea of housing 1,000 to 1,500 prison inmates in other states for the next four years as it completes an expansion of its own correctional facilities, a plan that has piqued the interest of states that are struggling with budget deficits.  Story from the Wall Street Journal.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections is currently in contact with five other states — Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma and Virginia — and has asked the states their specific proposals for housing the prisoners, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania corrections department said Thursday.

Michigan is actively pursuing a deal with Pennsylvania, according to Russell Marlan, a spokesman for Michigan’s Department of Corrections. The state has excess prison capacity and is looking to cut $120 million from its $2 billion annual prison budget. Bringing in prisoners from other states would also preserve hundreds of corrections jobs in the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation. “We will be going after this aggressively,” Mr. Marlan said Thursday. The Obama administration is also considering housing some of the detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Michigan. The administration is in the process of determining whether a maximum security facility in Standish, Mich., could house terrorism suspects. An alternative is the federal prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Like, Michigan, Virginia is also facing deficits. On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said the state will close three correctional facilities due to budget woes. Kansas has considered shortening sentences for imprisoned criminals to cut costs and help close a budget gap.

“Nobody has said ‘yup, we’re going to do this,’” said Susan McNaughton, a Pennsylvania corrections spokeswoman. But Pennsylvania has already been forced to place 234 prison inmates in roughly a half a dozen county prisons, she said, due to overcrowding in prisons. “This will all have to be taken into consideration,” she said. “They’re looking at the opportunity that best fits them, and best fits fiscally,” said Mr. Marlan. “We are interested and we are going to respond.”

jakking Economic Issues, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Overcrowding, Pennsylvania, Virginia

Northumberland County PA Prison inmates will pay more to live in a cell than most city apartment dwellers because of a 50 percent increase in the daily boarding fee, according to the Daily Item.

The prison board has approved Warden Roy Johnson’s recommendation to increase inmate boarding fees from $10 a day to $15 a day. Johnson said the county’s recent financial struggles to narrow a projected $1 million deficit this year prompted him to look at ways to save money. “I’m trying to do my part in helping so the prison is not a burden on taxpayers,” he said. “I can’t always save dollars, but if I can save a dime, I will.” In supporting the boarding fee hike, District Attorney Anthony Rosini said the county’s actual daily cost to house one inmate is more than $55.

A recent edition of The Daily Item included advertisements for 12 apartments in Sunbury and just one of them had monthly rent of more than $450.

Johnson said any little bit the county can collect will be worth the effort. The prison collects well below 20 percent of the owed fees from sentenced inmates after their release. Work-release inmates have the boarding fee automatically deducted from their paychecks, but less than 10 percent of the 200 or so prisoners are participating in the program. “Most inmates simply ignore the boarding fee once they’re released,” Johnson said. After 90 days, the bill is turned over to Central Credit Audit, a Sunbury collection agency, but Johnson said the company hasn’t been successful … “I haven’t seen any checks coming in,” Johnson said, before correcting himself and adding that a former female inmate has been sending $5 each month.

The prison board also unanimously agreed to charge inmates a $1.50 transaction fee for each check they give the jail for commissary items. Johnson said the prison handles an average 5,700 check or money-order transactions every year and the fee will offset some costs. “It won’t be a revenue generator,” the warden said.

jakking Booking Fees, PA Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections may lease a former state prison in southwestern Pennsylvania that was sold four years ago.  Story from Philly.com.

State prison officials say plans to lease the former State Correctional Institution at Waynesburg in Greene County remain in the discussion stage. The state wants to build four new prisons because it has 51,000 inmates, despite an official capacity for only 43,000. Bids for one of those projects was rejected last month as too expensive. For now, the state is housing extra inmates in county jails around the state.

The state sold the prison in 2005 to Charles Powell of Cambridge Springs, Md. Powell says he spent about $6 million renovating it, but a school he housed there for young drug and alcohol addicts closed about three years ago.

jakking Jail and Prison Construction, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s prison population explosion is forcing officials to look hundreds of miles away for solutions.  Report from the Pittsburg Tribune Review.

While the general population stagnated over the past nine years, Pennsylvania’s prison population swelled by nearly 40 percent, prompting state officials to take an old prison out of mothballs, haul modular units into prison yards across the state, farm inmates out to county jails and develop plans for four new prisons. Corrections Commissioner Jeffrey Beard has talked informally with Michigan Corrections Director Patricia Caruso about sending Pennsylvania’s wrongdoers to Michigan, which has closed facilities. “It’s an option,” said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton. For the time being, Beard is stuck trying to house nearly 51,000 inmates in a system designed to house 43,000.

Although the Legislature quietly allocated funds for the four prisons at a cost of $200 million each in last year’s capital budget, there’s been little discussion of the prison population explosion, what caused it, or the spike in the state’s corrections budget, which increased by 50 percent — from $1.2 billion to an estimated $1.8 billion — since the beginning of the decade. Carnegie Mellon University professor Alfred Blumstein, a nationally recognized expert on crime, attributes much of it to the politics of crime. Beginning in the 1970s, he said, politicians learned when they made a move to “get tough on crime,” the public would cheer. “The public is still relatively unsophisticated about incarceration. People tend to see it as the simplistic way to solve all the problems of things going on that you don’t like. But in some cases it can be counterproductive,” said Blumstein, former chairman of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. He said get-tough sentencing policies do little to affect arrest rates.

Recent spikes in prison spending caught the attention of lawmakers, such as Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery County, who wrote the state’s mandatory drug sentencing laws in the 1990s … Greenleaf has chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee for nearly two decades. He said the policies he and his colleagues championed — mandatory minimum sentences, limits on parole, more prison time for drug and nonviolent offenders — largely are responsible for a prison population spike with no accompanying decline in crime. Indeed, nonviolent offenders and mentally ill inmates make up about half of the state’s prison population, Greenleaf said.

Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Hollidaysburg, said the costs of such policies are draining public resources at an alarming rate. “Mandatory sentences are not working. In New York, they’ve re-thought that, and they’re losing 1,000 prisoners a year. “The real key is getting nonviolent inmates out of cells. We can do a lot with people, keeping them under house arrest in very punitive, very restrictive conditions. And then we can have them pay us for supervision instead of us paying,” Eichelberger said.

Officials in Michigan have relied on an aggressive, closely monitored, well-financed parole program with community input to reduce the prison population. The program, begun several years ago, has contributed to the excess of prison space, said Russ Marlan of the Michigan Department of Corrections. “Our parole rate has gone up, our recidivism rate has gone down, and the state police aren’t making as many arrests,” Marlan said.

In Pennsylvania, Beard told lawmakers he expects the prison population will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.

jakking Overcrowding, Pennsylvania

York County PA commissioners today approved an agreement with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to house state inmates at the York County Prison at the rate of $60 per day, according to the York Daily Record.

The state is building new facilities that should be done in three years and has asked counties to temporarily take in prisoners during that time. County prison warden Mary Sabol said she’s scheduled to meet with representatives of the Department of Corrections Thursday to discuss details such as when the prisoners will be moved to York County. Sabol said the county made the state an initial offer of 50 beds, which the prison can easily accommodate. The prisoners will be low-level-security inmates, she said. “They would be a population that would probably be with us for a year or two,” Sabol said.

The jail also houses about 700 prisoners from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Sabol said.

jakking County-State Issues, PA York County, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania DOC has expressed interest in exporting prisoners to Michigan — but they’ll have to stand in line behind California and the federal government, which is thinking about shipping in terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to the Detroit News.

State Department of Corrections officials confirmed Tuesday that Pennsylvania has approached Michigan about off-loading some of its prison population, which has grown from 48,000 to 51,000 since December.  The Michigan House Judiciary subcommittee on corrections reform will hear testimony today about the impact of shipping in prisoners at a hearing in Lansing.

Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton confirmed sending prisoners to Michigan “is something we are considering.” She added that Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections Jeffrey Beard has spoken with Michigan Corrections Director Patricia Caruso on three occasions.

Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said Michigan e-mailed queries to each of the 50 states in March asking if they would be interested in housing prisoners here. Florida and Wisconsin expressed minimal interest, Marlan said. Michigan submitted a request for proposals from Alaska and learned last week Michigan lost the bid, Marlan said.

Vermont offered to send Michigan some prisoners but not enough to significantly increase revenue for Michigan, Marlan said.  “They were looking for 100 beds, so it’s nothing that would benefit us,” Marlan said.

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The national recession is taking its toll on what had been one of the fastest-growing areas of state government spending: prisons. Even though state corrections budgets have ballooned in the past two decades amid a surging U.S. prison population, at least 23 states slashed funding for prisons this year, according to a new survey by the nonpartisan Vera Institute of Justice, a research organization based in New York. Thirty-three states responded to the survey, paid for by The Pew Charitable Trusts.  This story is from the Pew publication, Stateline.Org.

A $1 billion cost-cutting plan announced last week by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) will translate into layoffs for more than a thousand state prison workers. In Oregon, a voter-approved plan to hand longer prison sentences to those who commit property crimes was delayed by state lawmakers who said they could not pay for it. Tennessee’s department of corrections has sought to save money by offering inmates less milk and meat in their daily meals. And in Kansas — which has received national attention in recent years for shifting resources from locking up prisoners to rehabilitating them — the state eliminated 85 percent of the slots in its substance-abuse treatment program for inmates, citing budget constraints.

Six states — Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and Washington — cut funding for corrections by more than 10 percent from last year’s levels, according to the study. Kansas saw the biggest recorded decrease, spending 22 percent less than it did last year.

Corrections is the fifth-largest area of state spending after Medicaid, secondary education, higher education and transportation. State spending on prisons has swelled as the nation’s jail and prison population has climbed to 2.3 million people, or about one in every 100 adults. But grim budget realities are forcing state lawmakers’ hand.

According to the Vera survey, many states are wringing savings from their correctional systems by trying to reduce the huge operational costs of running prisons — including by laying off workers, freezing their wages or cutting services to inmates. They also are exploring new ways to reduce recidivism and achieve long-term savings, in some cases easing sanctions on “technical violators” who break conditions of their parole and frequently are sent back to prison. Some states, including Colorado and Oregon, are allowing more prisoners to reduce their prison sentences through “earned-time credits” for good behavior and other forms of early release.

Some of the cost-cutting moves — using videoconferencing to avoid physically transporting inmates for court appearances, for example, and cutting back on inmates’ meal offerings — have targeted the basics of daily prison life and reaped relatively modest savings. But other changes will save tens of millions of dollars and have not come without political fights.

According to Stateline.org’s annual review of states’ legislative sessions, at least seven states — Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Washington — this year decided to close prisons. In some states, those plans touched off resistance among prison unions and in hard-hit communities anxious about losing even more jobs.   New York’s prison workers’ union earlier this year accused the administration of Gov. David Paterson (D) of creating “the most dangerous conditions ever” for correctional officers by closing 10 prisons and packing inmates into other facilities. In Michigan, which has the nation’s highest unemployment rate, Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) is trying to avoid closing some prisons — and laying off prison guards — by accepting inmates from California’s teeming system. Some state officials have backed the idea of housing detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Early releases also have caused alarm, particularly in California, where a federal panel of three judges last week ordered the state to free more than 40,000 inmates — or about 27 percent of its prison population — within the next two years to ease dangerous overcrowding. Attorney General Jerry Brown (D), who is widely expected to run for governor next year, attacked the decision and could appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The early release of thousands of inmates also is being considered in Illinois.   While some criminal justice advocates contend that early releases and other cost-cutting moves could endanger public safety, others say states have not gone far enough in cutting inmate numbers.

Some advocates say state lawmakers have avoided what they see as the “elephant in the room” — tough sentencing policies that have put many low-level offenders behind bars for longer and been a major factor behind the explosive growth in the nation’s prison population since the 1970s, when many of the laws were passed. The federal panel that ruled on California’s prison overcrowding cited sentencing laws as a factor behind the Golden State’s huge prison population.  While New York this year revised its drug sentencing laws to give judges more discretion to keep offenders out of jail, other high-profile sentencing changes in the states have been far more limited in their scope. Texas, for instance, eliminated life without parole for juveniles, a penalty that currently affects only seven inmates. New Mexico abolished capital punishment, but had only two men on death row when the bill was signed into law in March.

Washington state’s legislative session this year was “completely upside down in terms of criminal justice policy,” said state Rep. Roger Goodman (D), vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Goodman said lawmakers cut funding for the wrong programs — such as housing and other transitional services that can help ex-inmates stay out of trouble — and refused to make substantial changes to the sentencing policies that he said have put too many nonviolent and drug-addicted people in prison in the first place. Goodman explained lawmakers’ distaste for making sentencing changes this way: “There aren’t enough political points to be gained by taking this issue on. There are political points to be gained by attacking it.”

While broad changes to criminal sentencing laws remain a tough sell issue in many state capitols, corrections officials are pushing other, less controversial changes to reduce prison populations. Many states have made sick or dying inmates eligible for early parole. Other states, including Florida and Tennessee, have invested more heavily in drug treatment courts and community supervision programs in the hopes of keeping offenders from returning to prison.  “Changing sentences is a very difficult thing to do. And so we’ve gone around it,” Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard said during an annual summit of state legislators in Philadelphia last month.

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PA – Starting this week, some state inmates will be moved into the Cambria County Prison under a new contract that is expected to bolster revenues to help offset the county prison’s operating costs. As reported in the Tribune-Democrat.

With state prisons overcrowded, the state Department of Corrections has turned to county prisons to house some inmates to alleviate the problem.

Cambria’s three commissioners and Warden John Prebish – always looking for ways to increase revenues and cut costs – jumped at the chance of taking some of the inmates, described as medium-security prisoners who would be completing state sentences and getting ready for release.

Cambria will be paid $55 a day for each state inmate housed here, with the number to range between 25 and 100, depending on bed availability. That could potentially add up to $2 million a year – if 100 would be housed in the county prison for 365 days.

It’s not a new step for Cambria’s prison. It housed state inmates from 1999 to 2002 and out-of-county and federal prisoners and immigration detainees for years.

“It’s doubtful the prison could ever make (enough) money to cover all costs, but the warden and his staff do a hell of a job in looking for revenues and keeping costs down,” Commissioner Milan Gjurich said.

Neighboring Somerset County, which has a smaller jail, does not take other inmates, Randy Welker, the county’s finance director, said. Housing Somerset County’s own inmates fills the beds, he said.

Last week, the census at the Somerset Jail was at a 138, even through prison officials attempt to keep the population at about 80, Deputy Warden Adele Bauer said.

In contrast, Cambria’s prison – which could house about 500 – had 469 inmates, including 344 from the county.

The additional 125 came from the following: 70, immigration; 33, U.S. Marshal’s Service; 16, Huntingdon County; and six, Blair County.

Revenues were at $2.6 million from 2000 through 2002 when state prisoners formerly were housed here. That income paid for about half of the operating costs, then about $4.5 million.

But then the revenues dropped.

They went under $900,000 in 2005 and 2006 when fewer immigration detainees were being kept here. However, the income shot up to $1.66 million in 2007 and $2.67 million in 2008, according to figures provided by Mike Gelles, the county’s chief clerk and finance director.

At the same time, the income was not covering as much as the operating expenses. Costs topped over $5 million in 2003 and jumped to $6.8 million by 2008.

This year’s budget projects operating costs at $7.28 million, and revenues may not reach the $2.6 million plateau they did in 2008, Gelles said.

While the bulk of the revenues comes from housing other prisoners, some money comes from the county prison’s transport service in which federal prisoners and detainees are taken to and from other facilities or courthouses and some Cambria prisoners are taken to hearings at district judges’ offices.

janchavarie Economic Issues, Overcrowding, PA Cambria County

A 25-year veteran of the state prison system will become the new warden of the Northumberland County PA Prison next month, following his appointment by the Northumberland County Prison Board on Tuesday.  Report from The Daily Item.

Roy Johnson, of New Cumberland, will take the reins at the county prison on July 13. He worked for the state Department of Corrections for 25 years, from which he retired as a Deputy Superintendent II in 2003. He served mostly recently at Coal Township and Graterford correctional facilities.  Ralph “Rick” Reish, the current warden, will work with Johnson during a short transition period, according to Chuck Erdman, Northumberland County controller and member of the prison board. He will then take vacation and other accrued time until his October retirement date.

jakking Officer Contract Issues, PA Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, Personnel Issues

An arbitration panel has ended the contract impasse between Lancaster County PA officials and the union representing guards at the county prison.  Reported by Lancaster Intelligencer Journal.

The 185 corrections officers represented by AFSCME Council 89 were awarded a 7 percent pay hike, retroactive to Jan. 1, but they will have to contribute more toward their medical benefits, according to the court-appointed arbitrators’ decision.

The commissioners are not pleased with the arbitration awards. “Given the economy, I am obviously very disappointed with the decision,” Commissioner Scott Martin said. All three commissioners said they would have preferred the prison guards getting a 2.75 percent pay hike, which is what all nonunion county employees and elected officials received this year … “Ideally, would I have liked to see the corrections officers agree to that, too? Yes,” Commissioner Craig Lehman said. “But at the same time, I’m not surprised by the decision. From the information I’ve seen, Lancaster County ranks at or near the bottom across the board (in pay for [corrections officers]) compared to the counties around us” …

Union and county officials were in negotiations for a new deal last year, but they reached an impasse in December. According to county administrator Charlie Douts, the union then chose to seek binding arbitration. Douts said the [officers] have the right to seek binding arbitration because they are not allowed to strike. The panel of arbitrators awarded the union members raises of 75 cents per hour, retroactive to Jan. 1, and another raise of 50 cents per hour beginning July 1. Similar raises were awarded for 2010 and 2011, but the commissioners might challenge those …

The commissioners’ displeasure with the arbitration panel’s decision has nothing to do with the work of the prison [officers], [Chairman Dennis] Stuckey said. “We have many fine people working at the prison, and we value them,” he said. “We had hoped the arbitrators would have realized that times are tough and now is not the time to make up the differences between us and other counties all at once.”

jakking Officer Contract Issues, PA Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Personnel Issues