Some Senate and House members want to enact new alternative sentences for non-violent convicts, saying they would decrease overcrowded state prisons and lighten the financial burden on the state. “Pennsylvania is still in the stone ages when you talk about prison reform,” Rep. Kenyatta Johnson, D-Philadelphia, said. “The appetite for prison reform is now.” Story from the Post-Gazette.

The reforms, which would require several new pieces of legislation, are backed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Ronald Waters, D-Philadelphia.

Measures include having non-violent prisoners who are facing short, minimum sentences serve their time at community-based corrections centers instead of a state prison. Alternative incarceration programs would also be sought for lesser offenses, such as drug-related crimes and technical parole violations.

Mr. Greenleaf said nearly half of the state’s prisoners are non-violent offenders. He said the state prison population has skyrocketed from about 8,000 in 1980 to more than 51,000 now. The state’s prison population was temporarily reduced recently when 2,000 prisoners were sent to prisons in Virginia and Michigan, but the number continues to rise.

“We’ve been tough on crime, but we haven’t been smart on crime,” Mr. Greenleaf said.

Pennsylvania spends more on corrections than 44 other states, according to Mr. Waters, who is sponsoring three bills aiming to reform sentencing.

The state’s Department of Corrections budget is now approaching $2 billion a year, more than 55 times what it was nearly 40 years ago, according to Mr. Waters’ figures.

Mr. Greenleaf said if the prison population continues to increase at the current rate, Pennsylvania may have to build a new prison every year, at the cost of more than $200 million per prison. Three new prisons are already scheduled to be built by 2014, and they will be immediately filled if trends continue. They will be in Centre, Montgomery and Fayette counties.

Mr. Greenleaf said that one factor causing costs to rise is a category called “technical parole violators,” people who are re-incarcerated for violations such as breaking curfew or failing to report to a parole officer. In 2008, 3,000 of these technical violators were re-incarcerated.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said the department supports the new measures.

“We’ve been tough on crime for a long time but have been kind of painting these offenders under a broad brush,” Ms. McNaughton said. “Not everybody needs to be separated from society . . . What they need is treatment.”

Dauphin County District Attorney Edward Marsico, president of the state District Attorneys Association, said alternative programs should be used, but the state needs to tread carefully with any changes to the criminal system.

“The overwhelming majority of inmates in the state correctional system are there for a reason,” Mr. Marsico said. “While their current offense may be non-violent, they may have a history of violence or a history of repeat offenses.”

He said the state could see even higher costs if offenders in the alternative programs continue to commit crimes. “Even if they commit non-violent offenses, that’s a huge cost, not only to their victims but also taxpayers down the road.”

Rep. Thomas Caltagirone, D-Berks, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would like to see the prison reform bills voted on by the time the new state budget is enacted this summer and legislators then recess.

The Senate has already approved three of the prison reform bills. The House Judiciary Committee met today to discuss them and suggested that amendments be made, including a provision allowing pregnant convicts to not be handcuffed while delivering children. Final committee action is expected next week.

jchev Alternative Sentencing, Pennsylvania

Luzerne County taxpayers spent $589,431 housing inmates in other facilities in 2008 because of overcrowding in the county prison system. Today, there are empty beds in the county prison system, enough to prompt the county Prison Board on Monday to discuss the possibility of renting space to the state and federal government. Story in The Times Leader.

The reversal stems from a concerted effort between the county and courts to reduce the prison population, said County Prison Warden Joseph Piazza.

“The courts are processing inmates faster. Counselors are working at getting inmates out on probation and parole. It’s a combination of things helping,” Piazza said.

The opening of a day reporting center at the end of July should also keep up to 150 non-violent offenders out of the county prison, Piazza said. The center, operated by BI Inc., will allow offenders to be on home confinement as long as they participate in mandatory treatment plans and report to the center for drug testing.

Piazza said reducing the number of inmates housed outside was one of his main missions when he was hired as warden in February 2009. The county spent $258,007 to place inmates in other facilities in 2009.

“So far this year, it was zero. I don’t house inmates out,” Piazza said.

Luzerne County has a reciprocal agreement with Lackawanna County to house inmates at no cost in special circumstances, Piazza said.

As of Monday, the county had 748 inmates. The county prison complex has the capacity to hold 805 in the main prison, the minimal offender/work release building and a women’s unit, he said.

The prison population is down 94 compared to the previous June, when the average inmate population was 842.

Here’s the average June inmate population in recent years: 2008, 860; 2007, 853; 2006, 820; and 2005, 732.

Commissioners have indefinitely scrapped plans to build a new $100 million-plus, 1,500-bed prison because the county doesn’t have the borrowing capacity to fund it.

“Anybody in corrections today knows we can’t build our way out of this,” Piazza said. “We won’t need a new prison, hopefully, because we’re looking at alternatives to incarceration.”

The county prison board agreed Monday to enter into an agreement with the state Department of Corrections and U.S. Federal Marshal’s Service to house inmates at the county prison when space is available. State and federal approval would take about six to eight weeks, he said.

The county spends about $94 per day per inmate to cover the cost of shelter, staff oversight, food, clothing and medical expenses, Piazza said. He proposes charging the state and federal government around $60 per day to generate revenue.

The prison board also voted unanimously Monday on two promotions: Eugene Wicht, corporal, $53,482, and John Smith, lieutenant, $53,271. David Wilde, Ashley, was hired as a lieutenant, also for $53,271. Corrections officer John Hooper, Ashley, was terminated.

jchev Economic Issues, PA Luzerne County

Latoya Campbell started a fight over ”hair grease” in Northampton County Prison. Angered when another inmate took too much of her styling gel, Campbell got in the woman’s face and became so threatening that she was locked down until she cooled down. Reported in The Morning Call.

But, instead of sending the rest of the inmates to their cells to thwart a bigger fight, the guards talked to some of them. Turns out that there was a reason Campbell got upset. She has no family to get her things like gel, so when it was nearly gone, she acted out. The woman later apologized to Campbell.

”When you say I’m selfish…I get mad. I don’t have things given to me,” said the 29-year-old Easton mother who has since been released from prison.

Order was kept thanks to a new guarding technique in Northampton County Prison. The technique — Inmate Behavior Management — sounds bureaucratic, but the principle is pretty basic.

The guards don’t just observe inmates’ behavior, they manage it, using rewards, punishments and sometimes compassion to keep prisoners in line.

”This isn’t a hug-a-thug program.” said Michael Bateman, a deputy warden. ”It’s not going to work for everyone.”

It’s a social compact. The guards, now called unit managers, promise to meet the inmates’ basic needs — physical and social — and set expectations. The guards give inmates incentives to meet those expectations. Some guards use a point or gold star system to grade the behavior.

So, on some cell blocks, the inmates in the cleanest cell of the week get a cup of Ramen noodles. A well-behaved block gets a some sparkly pencils and art supplies or Sunday night football. Misbehave, lose those privileges.

”It sounds like kindergarten, I know,” said inmate Saiquala Sullivan, as she looked down at a photograph of her son beaming from a sparkly, foam frame she had made in the prison. ”But here, where you have nothing, those things really mean a lot.”

At Northampton, 200 of its 800 inmates have been under behavior management since the fall. They are housed in special cell blocks — two for males and one for females.

The program is part of a growing trend to manage a burgeoning inmate population in 3,500 jails across the nation. The National Institute of Corrections has trained people at 150 jails in the program over the last five years. While other jails, such as Lehigh County Prison, have used concepts like clean cell contests, Northampton is the first in the Lehigh Valley to implement the full program.

The goal is to stem violence and other problems that plague jails. Make no mistake: Northampton has problems. Last year, two inmates slashed other inmates with razors. Two other prisoners were charged for restraining a guard while they flushed contraband down the toilet. There was a suicide last year.

None of those incidents, though, occurred in the units where the behavior was ”managed.” At Northampton, participants are selected based on their ability to accept behavior management. Those who don’t do well are sent back to the general population.

Those who stay aren’t just first-time criminals accused of nonviolent crimes like bouncing checks or not paying child support. Some are repeat offenders accused of dealing drugs, setting fires and attacking others.

The argument goes that inmates are rational. Treat them human; they act human. Humans with nothing to do will find something to do, and it might not be the best choice. So, keep them productive. This is rapidly changing the dynamics between captor and captive.

Guards are not therapists, but they can help inmates get into therapy. Guards are not lawyers, but they can get them legal forms. Guards are not coaches, but they can get them a ball to play sports. Guards are not inmates’ friends, but they often know all the names of the inmates on the block and the names of their children.

The jury is still out on whether this will have a long-term effect on inmate behavior, but experts say early results are promising.

Scott Hoke, a former Northampton guard who is now a professor at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, is studying the program in Northampton and four other jails across the country.

”The early results show a dramatic change in the behavior of inmates,” said Hoke. For example, the number of misconducts in Northampton County’s female unit recently went from six in three months to one. In Texas, a male block dropped from 72 misconducts to 39. The inmate grievances there went from 40 to 29, he said.

Hoke cautioned, though, that there will always be a certain inmate segment — probably 10-15 percent — that won’t respond and will need the traditional jail structure.

Hoke likened inmate management to the trend in policing that focuses on crime prevention — working with at-risk youth and empowering neighborhoods. There’s more to stopping the bad guys than making arrests. So, too, must prison guards be proactive, he said.

For repeat offenders like Sullivan, who spent time at infamous Riker’s Island in New York City, the new style of guarding has changed her outlook on what it means to be in prison.

Cells on the program’s blocks must be clean. By 8 a.m., gray blankets are tucked neatly underneath the bunk-bed mattresses, books are stacked on the desks and, on the women’s block, videotapes are alphabetized by title and inmate artwork hangs on the wall. On the men’s block, some inmates are quietly play chess and checkers after morning chores; others watch the History Channel. One inmate has done a portrait of President Barack Obama.

Corrections officer Karen Wiley, who guards Sullivan’s block, said she has noticed a change in the inmates. She said they work like a team most days, cleaning their cells, reading or doing artwork. They also police each other’s speech — no cursing.

While she may have scoffed at the idea in her younger years, Sullivan appreciates the program now. It’s still jail, she laments — locked away from her son and under constant eye of guards. She doesn’t want to be here, but after being at Northampton a couple of months, she said feels more like a person.

”I’m not coming back,” she said.

jchev Inmate Grievances, PA Northampton County

Pennsylvania corrections officials hope to allow private businesses to employ state prison inmates to teach more of them the job skills and work ethic they will need upon being released.

The state Department of Corrections is asking lawmakers to sign off on a bill that would authorize state prisons to join with private companies. Inmates would work at the prison, typically in manufacturing or parts work, for a company.

But with Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent, the effort faces an uphill battle with lawmakers and labor officials, who see their constituents struggling to find work.

“This is where it’s going to be a real tough sell,” said state Rep. Thomas Caltagirone, D-Berks, the Judiciary Committee chairman who introduced the bill in the House. “Many members have high unemployment in their districts. … (But) I don’t want to miss the boat on this if it’s something that can help our commonwealth.”

Under the bill, inmates working for a private company would be paid wages similar to others working in the industry outside of the prisons, while inmates who work existing prison jobs make 17 cents to 42 cents per hour. Businesses could not replace current workers with inmates and would have to prove that there is not a surplus of available workers in the area before teaming with the prisons.

Inmates working under the plan would keep only a portion of the higher wages. Federal, state and local taxes would be withheld, as would a fee for room and board, contributions to victims’ support programs and support payments that would be sent home to their families, officials said.

Corrections officials said the program would teach inmates job skills and a strong work ethic in a realistic setting and would cut down on idleness in the prisons.

They said that in many cases, the jobs offered to inmates would be those companies are unable to fill.

Pennsylvania Correctional Industries, a program that employs about 1,550 inmates systemwide to make items such as inmate clothing and soap and to print forms and publications for state agencies, has waiting lists at the 15 institutions that offer it, program director Tony Miller said.

Miller said the program is limited in where it can market its products — only to state agencies and some nonprofits — so the program could not be expanded to accept more inmates. He said the partnerships with private businesses would be a way of employing and training more inmates because products made under those agreements could be sold on the open market.

But lawmakers and labor union officials at a hearing this month found it hard to stomach the idea of law-abiding citizens searching for work while corrections officials create new agreements to employ more prison inmates.

Without their support, John Coyne, the director of legislative affairs for the Department of Corrections, said it would be all but impossible for the bill to move forward.

“It just escapes me that there are not enough people out there to fill the jobs who are currently on unemployment,” said Rep. Deberah Kula, D-Fayette.

Russ Keating, of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, said he supported the idea of helping inmates by providing job training, but said his group’s members have major concerns about the proposal.

“Our problem is, you’d have to convince us this program would not displace law-abiding citizens,” he said.

Frank Sirianni, of the Building Trades Association, echoed the concerns. “The economy of today makes it tough to absorb this type of (plan),” Sirianni said.

A new board would be created to approve the partnerships, and Sirianni said lawmakers could drum up support from union leaders by giving labor representatives a seat on that board as well as veto power.

“That goes a long way to making this more palatable,” Sirianni said. Without the ability to veto, labor representatives could always be outvoted on partnerships their members oppose, he said.

An identical proposal is before the state Senate Appropriations Committee. The plan was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. Caltagirone said he anticipates “a need for a lot of amendments” to the proposal.

jchev Inmate Programs, Pennsylvania, Work Release

Pennsylvania’s four new prisons, set to open in 2013, will be filled past capacity as soon as they open unless officials implement a variety of changes to alleviate the state’s prison overcrowding, Department of Corrections Sec. Jeffrey Beard told lawmakers Tuesday. Reported by The Patriot News.

The inmate count is expected to top 54,000 next month, about 10,500 over current capacity. The state completed the transfers of 2,100 inmates to prisons in Michigan and Virginia last month and construction is set to begin this summer on the new prisons.

Beard offered lawmakers five changes that would not cost money to implement, including sending those with a technical parole violation, a small offense such as missing an appointment, to community-based programs and not back to prison; diverting offenders with short sentences into community corrections facilities; and loosening parole restrictions to allow non-violent offenders to be paroled once they’ve served their minimum sentence.

The changes could save the state at least $110 million after three years, Beard said.

Gov. Ed Rendell said Tuesday the state has to evaluate its entire system and significantly alter sentencing rules to reserve state prisons for only the most dangerous offenders.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Thomas Caltagirone, D-Berks, said he plans to introduce legislation soon that mirrors two Senate bills, SB 1161 and SB 1299, that would put into law several of the reforms Beard is seeking.

jchev Overcrowding, Pennsylvania

Deep in rural Pennsylvania, some 300 miles from Providence, The Glen Mills Schools appears to offer much to troubled teenaged boys. The school’s glossy brochure depicts a lush, green campus with neat athletic fields, a football stadium and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Vocational programs range from auto body repair and landscaping to dentistry and golf course management. News in the Providence Journal.

Glen Mills has so impressed Chief Family Court Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. that he recently referred a dozen delinquent boys there.

But state child welfare officials say no matter how good the school may be, troubled teens generally do better when they stay close to their families and communities. More than a decade ago, officials at the state Department of Children, Youth and Families concluded that juveniles with behavioral or emotional problems could be helped more cheaply, and with better results, closer to home.

Now, state child welfare officials and the Family Court’s highest judge are at odds over how best to treat juvenile delinquents in state care.

“If there’s nothing in the state, fine, we look outside of Rhode Island,” Patricia Martinez, director of the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, said. “The question is: What is [the child] going to get out of state that he’s not going to get in Rhode Island?”

Glen Mills has been recruiting juvenile offenders from Rhode Island at least since the late 1990s, when Jeremiah and then-director of the DCYF, Jay G. Lindgren Jr., climbed into a borrowed Department of Corrections van and drove 300 miles to visit the school.

“They toured us around, spent a lot of time talking with us,” Lindgren recalled. “It all looked very good.”

Back then, the courtship produced only a handful of enrollments for the school. The distance was a big reason, Lindgren said. Glen Mills is so remote, he said, it was hard for teenagers to maintain family and community ties. And keeping in touch with youths so far away is time consuming and expensive.

“Too often,” Lindgren said, “the kids were kind of out of sight, out of mind.”

Then, in late January of this year, Jeremiah suggested that Andrew J. Johnson, a lawyer and director of the Rhode Island Court Appointed Special Advocate’s office, visit Glen Mills to see what their program has to offer. Johnson flew to Philadelphia, at the school’s expense, where a school van drove him the 22 miles to the school in Concordville, Pa. He met with admissions officials, toured the campus and talked to students.

“It’s a remarkable place,” Johnson said after he returned. “Step on the campus and it’s like a prep school or a university … .”

Glen Mills houses up to 900 juvenile offenders, ages 14 to 18. The school does not admit fire setters, sex offenders or children who take psychotropic medication for behavioral or mental health problems. (The school is not licensed to provide mental health services.) Students live in unlocked, dormitory-style housing and move freely around the campus; behavior is managed through a system of “peer pressure” and “group confrontation,” a promotional booklet states.

Graduates with good grades can qualify for college scholarships of up to $3,000 per semester.

It costs Rhode Island about $134 per day to send one teenager to Glen Mills. (Last year, it sent seven.) That’s substantially less than the roughly $370 per diem cost of operating the state training school, a high-security facility with mandated staffing levels. It’s also about $20 to $80 per day less than three of the four residential programs — all of which are staffed with licensed mental health counselors — for delinquent boys in Rhode Island.

The DCYF also normally does not pay travel expenses for parents to visit their children in out-of-state facilities. But last year, Jeremiah ordered the DCYF to reimburse four family members who couldn’t afford the travel expense; the air fare cost the state just under $1,700.

Glen Mills will cover families’ travel expenses for an additional per diem cost of $20, though state officials here have not agreed to the higher rate.

The DCYF is required to visit juveniles placed out of state “at least once per month, or more frequently as needed” to ensure their safety and well-being. But since last December, neither DCYF staff nor anyone from the agency’s private contractor, which visits youths in out-of-state programs, has been monitoring the teenagers at Glen Mills.

“Obviously we should be doing this,” Jorge E. Garcia, the DCYF’s deputy director, said. However, he said, the policy covers only treatment facilities, not schools. And he acknowledged visits “will be another cost…”

In Rhode Island, as in other states, child welfare agencies have been trying to reduce their reliance on residential programs.

A 2003 report commissioned by former Gov. Lincoln Almond said that Rhode Island had become dependent on “expensive out-of-state” residential treatment programs at the expense of more effective –– and less costly –– community-based programs. Keeping children with families, whether biological, adopted or foster parents, is far preferable, the report said, than placing them in group homes, residential programs, or other institutions.

Their findings echoed a U.S. Surgeon General’s report released in 1999, which concluded that there was “weak evidence” that residential treatment programs helped improve the well-being of young people — and growing evidence that they actually do the opposite.

“All the research tells us that one of the drivers of delinquent behavior is association with delinquent peers,” Patrick McCarthy, president-elect of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private, nonprofit agency, said. “So the notion that the best way to respond to delinquency is to put the child with other children with delinquent behavior challenges everything we know about delinquent behavior.”

Nationally, the average rate of juvenile offenders living in publicly and privately operated facilities between 1997 and 2008 declined 26 percent, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention. During that same period in Rhode Island, the rate fell 31 percent.

The population of Rhode Island juveniles in private and public residential facilities, including out-of-state programs, averaged 312 in 2007, the report said.

Rhode Island also is sending fewer juveniles out of state. The number of Rhode Island juveniles in out-of-state programs in fiscal 2009 averaged 108 per day, compared with 160 per day in fiscal 2008, according to the DCYF. The decline in out-of-state placements last year saved Rhode Island about $3.8 million.

Almost all of those juveniles, with the exception of those placed at Glen Mills, were diagnosed with complex behavioral or mental health conditions, Garcia said, and needed care not available in Rhode Island.

Efforts by child welfare agencies around the country to reduce their reliance on residential programs, coupled with a weak national economy, have heightened competition among private providers to fill beds.

Until last year, for example, Ocean Tides, which operates a residential treatment program for male juvenile offenders in Narragansett, had a three-year contract with the DCYF, which guaranteed a steady stream of revenue. If a bed was empty for a few nights it didn’t matter, because the state was still paying for it. (Jeremiah joked that he has referred so many teenage boys to Ocean Tides that the staff has dubbed him “Director of Admissions.”)

But last year, to save money, the DCYF switched to paying some of its providers per day, per bed.

Ocean Tides wound up with empty beds that nobody was paying for. So it closed some of its units and reduced its available beds from 65 to 57 beds, said Ocean Tides’ president, Brother Brendan Gerrity.

“You’ve got to make sure you keep the beds filled,” he said, “Right now, we have a waiting list with about seven boys on it.”

At Glen Mills, just under half of the beds are occupied by juveniles from Pennsylvania; the rest come from outside the state, said the school’s admissions coordinator, Andy Shirlow. Glen Mills’ enrollment in February was down to about 740 students, leaving 160 beds empty.

In February two admissions officers from the school came to Rhode Island at the request of Jeremiah. They interviewed more than a dozen teenage boys at the state training school for possible admission to Glen Mills.

The waiting lists at local programs, such as Ocean Tides, are one reason why Jeremiah says he turned to the school in Pennsylvania.

“If they don’t go to Glen Mills,” he said, “they stay at the training school.”

Jeremiah said the DCYF officials have a “Rhode Island mentality” that 300 miles is too far away to send these teenage boys. “Kids grow up and they go away to college, right?”

The Rhode Island Training School’s intake center is where teenagers who have run afoul of the law eat, sleep, and attend classes while the adults –– lawyers, judges, probation officers, case workers –– decide where they go next. Each week, admissions officers from residential providers from around the state, and sometimes beyond, visit the intake center to interview young offenders for their programs. They show the teenagers brochures with photographs of ocean surf and kids canoeing on pine-rimmed lakes. “Teaching minds, touching hearts, changing lives,” reads one brochure from Ocean Tides.

Of the 12 teenage boys Jeremiah referred to Glen Mills, only three teens (ages 14, 15 and 16) have been admitted to the Pennsylvania school, according to the DCYF. Glen Mills rejected four teens who were taking prescription medications. Of the five others, one was accepted into a local residential program, one is on home confinement awaiting trial and the two others have been sentenced to the training school until they turn 19.

Though the average length of stay in the intake center is 30 days, 70 percent of the juveniles leave within two weeks, most of them for home, the Training School’s acting superintendent, Kevin Aucoin, said.

Michael Gingras, a clinical social worker at the intake center, said some providers spend a half-hour or more talking with the juveniles at the intake center and showing them brochures.

“It’s not unusual for kids to get interviewed at lunchtime and say, ‘I want to go there!’ Gingras said. “Then they get interviewed [by someone again] at dinner time and say, ‘I want to go here!’ ”

jchev Juvenile Justice, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

Advancements in technology and substantial upgrades to perimeter security at Pennsylvania’s state prisons will allow the Department of Corrections to reduce staffing levels at the towers of five facilities without compromising safety, Secretary of Corrections Jeffrey A. Beard, Ph.D., said today.From the PR Newswire.

Beard said the move, which is expected to save the commonwealth nearly $5 million, will begin in May and will be fully implemented by June.

The affected prisons are the state correctional institutions at Camp Hill, Cumberland County; Dallas, Luzerne County; Graterford, Montgomery County; Huntingdon, Huntingdon County; and Rockview, Centre County.

Beard noted that the five facilities — all of which were built before 1961 — are the oldest in the state’s system, and that 22 of the state’s prisons, including the newest maximum security prisons, already operate without perimeter towers.

“Over the last several decades, we have spent millions of dollars strengthening our prisons’ perimeters and security,” Beard said. “These enhancements, coupled with security improvements made within the prisons, all greatly reduce the need to staff perimeter towers around the clock, without compromising safety inside or outside of our prisons.

“In fact, this move will bolster security inside our facilities by allowing us to place officers at posts inside the prisons where they can be better utilized. Due to our improvements, the towers no longer require round-the-clock staffing.”

Initially, tower staffing will be reduced except for times when there are major inmate movements within the prisons, such as when inmates are exercising in the yards. The first phase of staffing changes will be implemented by the end of June.

In recent decades, modern prison designs have replaced towers with high-tech electronic perimeter intrusion detection systems and perimeter cameras. Today, the perimeters at each of Pennsylvania’s 26 prisons have multiple layers of razor wire as an additional barrier to prevent an inmate from approaching and climbing the fence.

Prison perimeters and internal compound activities are also monitored centrally by trained staff around the clock, while armed mobile units patrol the perimeter continuously and rapidly respond to alarms.

The corrections department also uses biometric systems that use inmate and staff photos and fingerprints to control movement in and out of an institution.

Officers who presently staff the towers will be assigned to posts within the prisons during hours when the towers are not in use. Placing these officers inside the prisons will help to offset overtime costs and provide an estimated annual savings of $4.8 million.

jchev Pennsylvania, Personnel Issues

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.

jchev 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.

jchev 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.

jchev 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.

jchev 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.

jchev 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.”

jchev 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.

jchev 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.

jchev 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.

jchev 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.

jchev 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