The first grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice, is a Second Chance Act Grant totaling $410,467. These funds, in addition to $41,100 in-kind state matching funds, will be used to support treatment and recovery services for female offenders at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy who meet certain requirements. Report by PR Newswire.

“This grant allows us to develop and test a well-designed strategy for offenders with dual disorders,” Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said. “This increases the likelihood of successful offender re-integration and improved public safety by reducing the likelihood of future criminal activity.”

Approximately 100 to 150 female offenders with dual co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders, who are within 18 months of their parole eligibility date and who will return to Allegheny, Dauphin or Philadelphia counties, will benefit from this grant.

The funds will be used over a two-year period to support a specialized therapeutic community at SCI Muncy. The program will provide integrated mental health and substance abuse treatment services in addition to supportive services addressing education, family relations, safety, and housing. The DOC will partner with the Department of Health’s Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Programs, the Department of Public Welfare’s Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, local service providers and community organizations to ensure services will continue for participating offenders after their release from prison.

“This grant award allows everyone involved in treatment and recovery for these specific offenders to work together toward a common goal,” said Mary Finck, manager of the DOC’s re-entry program. “We are pleased we were selected for this grant and will work hard to use it to improve public safety through specialized treatment of offenders.”

The second grant has been awarded by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice totaling $209,323.

“This grant is another big win for us,” Wetzel said. ”It was very competitive, and only five awards were made nationwide.”

The grant award, made under the “Criminal Justice Researcher-Practitioner Fellowship Placement Program,” will fund a one-year project that places an academic professor from the University of Maryland as an “embedded criminologist” within the DOC to provide technical assistance with the agency’s research agenda. Dr. Kiminori Nakamura will be funded to serve as a regular part-time DOC employee for the period of the grant.

“The benefit to the DOC will be to have easy, onsite and regular access to an expert in the field of criminal justice research,” said Bret Bucklen, director of the DOC’s Office of Planning, Research and Statistics.  “The benefit to the researcher is that he will be able to apply academic work to real world policy issues, will have ready access to data and will be able to seek publication of the results of the joint research endeavors.”

“University of Maryland’s Criminology & Criminal Justice department consistently ranks as the top criminal justice program nationwide, so we’re getting a good resource in Dr. Nakamura,” Wetzel said.

The purpose of the research is to determine at what point after release from prison a parolee has no greater statistical likelihood of getting arrested as the average citizen. While this will be Nakamura’s primary interest, the main point of the grant is to use his expertise to provide assistance with research on DOC interests.

The grant also will fund two graduate students to assist the DOC and Nakamura. It also will provide funds for the DOC to purchase software needed by DOC research staff for mapping and population projections.

The DOC’s Office of Planning, Research and Statistics will coordinate this grant, which is currently slated to start Jan. 1, 2012.

The problem: The system is bulging at the seams, and if overcrowding gets worse, every taxpayer will feel the pain. Philadelphia’s prison system was built to house 6400 inmates in a clean, safe, humane environment.  These days, the inmate census averages nearly 9600. The city spends extra money each year, shipping overflow inmates to other facilities on top of money spent defending itself in a federal lawsuit over crowded conditions.

On May 1, Keen will join several other jail wardens from across the state at a Department of Corrections meeting in Elizabethtown to discuss the possibility of sending state prisoners who are near their parole dates to county prisons that likely have more space. “Every state facility in Pennsylvania is overflowing,” said Keen, who added that the new facilities being built won’t be completed for several years.  In the meantime, local jails are being asked to take inmates close to being paroled for a “little bit of profit.”

Keen said he would like to receive $55 a day per inmate for reimbursement, or more than $2,500 a day if the 50 empty beds at the 185-bed jail are filled …

Cambria County Prison Warden John Prebish also will attend the May 1 meeting and said the ability to help out with costs to the county, as well as lower the strain on state institutions, is appealing.  “It’s not cheap to run a jail,” Prebish said. “It’s not a profitable environment for a county. Any way we can offset our costs, we’ll do it.”   The 500-bed facility has about 100 empty beds, although that number jumps up and down significantly depending on things like holding immigration cases in the county …

Blair County Prison Warden Michael Johnston also will attend the meeting and said while he doesn’t know much about the plan’s specifics, it’s an idea he would be open to considering. “Right now, I have some space that I could do that with,” Johnston said. “It would be something I would be very interested in.”   There currently are 48 empty beds in the 342-bed facility. There also are about 10 to 12 state inmates awaiting transfer from the Blair County Prison, down from the 25 that were waiting transfer six weeks ago, Johnston said. He said he would like to see reimbursement for the time in between state-sentencing and transport from the county prisons. Johnston said he currently charges $50 a day for out-of-county inmates, although he may raise that amount to $55, identical to Centre County’s cost, at the beginning of 2010.

At next Thursday’s prison board meeting, L. Robert Kimball & Associates will outline for the board how much cheaper it would be to operate one big, new prison than to run the current prison and a scaled-down prison to be built somewhere else.  A January report prepared Kimball detailed the shortcomings of the circa-1851 prison at 625 E. King St., which  has a design capacity for 658 beds, but today is home to 1,143 prisoners.  That report discussed the projected need in 2025 for 2,114 prison beds, then laid out several scenarios to build a new prison. The most ambitious plan was for a new, 2,158-bed facility that would cost  $169.42 million to build, an amount roughly equal to the cost of the downtown hotel/convention center.  Yet most prison board members say the are now focused on how to save money, not how to spend it on a new prison …

“We’re just not going to build ourselves out of this problem right now when there’s other things we could be doing before we get to that point,” said County Commissioner Scott Martin.   Martin, who chairs the seven-member prison board, said streamlining some court operations and setting up a day-reporting center are among the options that would free up space at the East King Street prison, delaying the need for a new jail …

Among the improvements, [District Attorney Craig] Stedman said, would be to streamline the court’s scheduling system to get people to trial quicker, thereby cutting down on the number of prisoners who are waiting for a trial date.   In 2006, the Kimball report said the average stay in the county prison was 71 days, while adding that every day knocked off that average could reduce the daily prison population by 16 prisoners.  And since about 80 percent of prisoners in the county prison that year were awaiting trial, getting them through the court system quicker could free up a lot of space …

Commissioner Craig Lehman also highlighted the benefits of a day reporting center, which could be set up apart from the prison and include drug testing and job training services.  With such a center here, probation officers could send violators there instead of simply adding them to an already overcrowded prison, local officials say.

It had so many inmates in 1998 that it sent some to empty cells in other Pennsylvania counties. In early 2003, the prison added second bunks to hundreds of cells. “We’re reaching our capacity,” then-Warden Charles Barber said in April 2003. He spoke just after the prison’s total average daily population surpassed 700 inmates for the first time. The number peaked Oct. 30, 2006, at 743. The figures have gone the other way since then. The prison’s average daily population in December 2008 was 531, the lowest since 2001. The daily census was 516 on Dec. 24, 2008, also the lowest daily figure since 2001, and the average daily population was 606 for all of 2008, another recent low …

Erie County Judge Ernest J. DiSantis Jr., who works closely with the prison as head of the local court’s Trial Division, said public safety remains a major factor at sentencing. But he said his fellow judges know that home electronic monitoring and other programs for nonviolent inmates are effective. “Everyone is conscious of the issue of prison overcrowding,” DiSantis said. “We try to use incarceration judiciously” …

DiSantis is confident the shift is due to one change in policy, regarding the incarceration of parents who fail to pay child support. He said a change in policy for jailing offenders on probation and parole has likely contributed to the shift as well. A February 2005 state Superior Court decision … said judges must consider a delinquent parent’s ability to pay. The Erie County Prison held 124 inmates on average a day for failure to pay child support in 2005. The number dropped to 52 in 2008 …

In the other policy shift, for offenders on parole or probation, Erie County’s judges in 2007 altered a 2002 program. The old program, a zero-tolerance initiative called Sanction Certainty, required probation officers, with few exceptions, to jail offenders who committed probation or parole violations, such as drinking alcohol. The new program takes a more gradual approach. An offender is likely to receive a verbal or written warning before prison. “We’re not necessarily looking to lock them up the first time around,” DiSantis said.

The Passaic County Sheriff’s Department, which oversees the jail, will not renew the deal when it expires May 31.   Sheriff’s department spokesman Bill Maer says the program raised about $3 million for Passaic County, with a per diem rate of $88 per prisoner. It was also meant to help alleviate overcrowding in Philly jails, which officials say has improved.  There were 200 Philadelphia inmates in Paterson at the height of the program. The last inmate was transferred out of New Jersey and back to a Philadelphia jail two weeks ago.

Maer says the agreement “has outlived its usefulness.”

“I can’t imagine it will stay down on a long-term basis,” Baldwin said … “You can’t look at a temporary blip to make long-term plans.” The prerelease center, planned for a 4.6-acre site beside State Correctional Institution/Frackville, would hold nonviolent inmates and allow them to participate in work release programs. Motivation for the center has been the overcrowded county prison, which is designed for no more than 240 inmates.    While hitting highs of 360 inmates last year, the population has now fallen to 248, according to Warden Eugene Berdanier …

While the low inmate count is a welcome break, changing plans based on a few days or weeks of data is unwise, said county commissioners Chairwoman Mantura M. Gallagher.  “Look at where it (the population) was last year. We have no idea where it might be a year from now,” Gallagher said in a telephone interview Thursday morning.   Baldwin said Thursday he expected to see the prison population grow.  “Usually when the economy’s bad, crime increases,” he said.

As for the center, Gallagher said the project is “all about the money right now.” Price estimates depend on who’s giving them.    Gallagher and fellow Democrat Commissioner Francis V. McAndrew campaigned in 2007 on the idea of a prerelease center, but estimated a $3 million price tag. More recent estimates from Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates, a Mechanicsburg prison consulting firm, put the price closer to $5 million.   Baldwin said more than $1 million in prisoner fines and fees has been set aside for the project. County officials are hopeful the rest will come from a low-interest U.S. Department of Agriculture loan.

Baldwin said he thinks additional money could come from another source.  “We’re essentially shovel-ready,” Baldwin said, adding the center could qualify for a piece of the $787 billion stimulus package, passed earlier this year.

The reality is that 90 percent of Pennsylvania’s more than 49,000 incarcerated offenders – regardless of whether they have been convicted of a nonviolent or violent crime – will be released from prison and returned to the community. That means we must be able to integrate former inmates safely into society, which requires the cooperation of everyone in the criminal-justice system and the community.  The commonwealth is committed to doing its part to ensure public safety and proper oversight of paroled inmates or those on early release. The Department of Corrections has implemented practices that are producing positive results and are being recognized as among the best in the nation …

Rehabilitating an offender is no small undertaking. Upon entering our system, inmates often have severe, diverse, and numerous needs. More than 70 percent have substance-abuse issues, more than 65 percent have anger and hostility issues, nearly 80 percent function below the 12th-grade level, 18 percent are mentally ill, and 80 percent were unemployed at the time of arrest and have little work experience or vocational skills.   We begin addressing these issues the day the offender enters the state prison system by planning for a safe, crime-free reentry when he or she is released. That includes identifying the areas that must be addressed to prevent future criminal behavior, developing individual treatment plans, delivering proven programs, and constantly evaluating efforts to ensure they work.

Last year, more than 10,000 inmates completed substance-abuse programs; 11,000 completed programs addressing anger and hostility issues; and almost 15,000 received vocational or educational training. These programs have proved effective. Temple University found that our therapeutic community program reduced by 15 percent the likelihood that a former inmate would return to prison within five years, while our educational and vocational training efforts reduced that likelihood by 5 percent over the same period …

They say that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, the same is true for keeping criminals who have paid their debts to society from re-offending. The Department of Corrections will continue to do its part by properly assessing offenders as they enter our system and offering evidence-based treatment and educational and vocational training programs. We will also continue to work with other elements of the criminal-justice system – from arresting authorities and sentencing judges to the parole board and community leaders.

The Clearfield County Prison Board is exploring the possibility of contracting with the Jefferson County Jail during times of maximum capacity at the Clearfield County Jail. At yesterday’s meeting, the board received an e-mail from Jefferson County Judge John Henry Foradora who said that there is space available at the jail at a rate of $55 per day. Currently, CCJ has a contract with the Centre County Prison at the same rate. Both facilities are approximately 45 miles from the Clearfield County Jail.   No action was taken on the topic  yesterday,  but  the  board agreed  to  look  into  the possibility.

The board also received a letter from the state Department of Corrections regarding transportation services. Clearfield County has long been using the Department of Corrections service to transport inmates to the state correctional facility in Houtzdale from other state prisons. Now, under a new act, the department would be required to provide the service. The department would also be permitted to charge the county 16 cents per mile for the service. The board agreed that the fee is manageable because it saves the sheriff’s department from having to transport the inmates. The county could also be reimbursed when the service is used to transport inmates for Attorney General cases.

From these small matters, we can see that, when counties are actively competing one with the other for inmates, the entrepreneur/rentor distinction between counties has become a standard feature rather than an exception.   And in the matter of transportation we see further evidence of the modern shift of financial obligation from the higher levels of governments to the lower; the movement of costs from State to county, and from county to city.