The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

I told myself that this couldn’t happen in the land of the free. After all, inmates’ family members are not incarcerated, but affected directly. I told myself that surely people will stand up and protest when they realize the inhumanity of such a proposal and that there would be a public outcry to stop such alienation and separation of Pennsylvania families. Then it hit me that it could happen to my own daughter; to our family! She is serving life without parole sentence in Pennsylvania and has been incarcerated for over 25 years. I asked myself, “Will they move lifers?” A short while later I got an e-mail from another PA inmate support group stating that 300 lifers were to be moved from SCI, Graterford to Michigan if they had not had a visit in the past 4 years. In addition, programs such as G.E.D.s would no longer be offered to lifers. E-mails and phone calls were generated across Pennsylvania and across the United States. Everybody had questions. Everyone appeared to be in disbelief. There were even people from other countries who contacted us to see if it was true.
Shortly thereafter, we had our regular monthly meeting on October 17, 2009 and the issue of moving inmates to other states was a hot topic on our agenda. Before the meeting began, Ruby, a small, frail, African American woman walked up to me and was visibly shaken and upset. She told me that her nephew was a lifer at Graterford and she had received a letter from him that he would be transferred to California in January. I told her that surely that couldn’t be true because California is known to have the most overcrowded prison population in the country.

I told her I would see what I could find out. When the topic came up on the agenda, I asked her to tell the other members what she had told me. Ruby rarely speaks in meetings but she courageously told the others what she had learned. You could have heard a pin drop. As I looked around the room, I could see the incredulous faces of those in attendance who had not yet heard about the transfers or thought that it couldn’t be possible. At that time, nothing had been confirmed. I later spoke with prison advocates in California who told me that they were also shipping in prisoners from the state of Oregon. Later that week, we were to learn that even more states were being considered to ship Pennsylvania prisoners to and that inmates had already been informed that they would be moving out of state. We were all in shock!
We all understand that the problem of overcrowding leads to dangerous conditions not only for the prison staff, but for the inmate population, visitors, outside vendors and society in general. Overcrowding can contribute to outbreaks of physical aggression, disease, medical neglect, abuse, extensive isolation, suicides, suspicious deaths, chronic mental and physical problems, insufficient or no education and a population not ready for re-entry back into society. Every time a human being is locked away in a facility where they are warehoused and treated as non-human, they become a further threat to society and more victims will likely result. While prison costs keep escalating, funding is taken from outside education and social programs to build yet more institutions and the prison system continues to burst at the seams.
Not only have I heard reports from California, about shipping prisoners either in or out of state, but also from other associates throughout the United States. This is not a problem confined to Pennsylvania, but Pennsylvania seems to be doing it on a grander scale. It seems prisoners are being shuffled around from state to state to appease overcrowding laws and court orders, while the public is unaware of the increased burden in taxes that are being levied on them in order to accomplish this.
As a member of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee to the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole in Pittsburgh, I asked District Director, Larry Ludwig, if inmates could be paroled if the institution didn’t give a recommendation and he told me no. I had countless letters from inmates who said they were still sitting in prison even after they had complied with all of their program requirements. They said that often, they were told they needed to have additional, newly adopted, programs and that the waiting lists to get on them were very long. So, they continued to sit in prison. I question why such programs couldn’t be handled upon release? Wouldn’t it create jobs and relieve overcrowding? I had reports that inmates due for parole had been told that their records had been lost. At the State Correctional Institution at Cambridge Springs, 300 such records were found and a guard was reported by another officer who had located them months later.
One woman, housed at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, sent me a copy of a court order from a Judge remanding her into the community, but she was still in Muncy nine (9) months later. It made me question if there were people still in prison who should have been sent home or to other facilities? I also learned that inmates with drug or alcohol records were held back when their parole minimum dates came up, even though they had no history of violent crime. Why couldn’t they have been given further treatment outside of prison walls? They too, remained in prison, padding the institutional profiles.
I also question how inmate advocacy groups can keep track of prisoners who were sentenced in Pennsylvania, but will now be housed elsewhere? What will happen with the “Right to Know Act?” Will it cross state lines? How can prison advocacy groups serve our fellow Pennsylvanians when we don’t know where they are located? Will this information be made readily available? Will families and loved ones be informed? Will the families survive? Questions, unanswered questions.
And then, we worry about the high cost of exorbitant phone bills that will only increase if a loved one is moved even farther away. We worry about higher traveling expenses to visit them and if we will ever be able to see them again? Under the Department of Corrections Handbook for Visitors (DC-ADM 812, p.20, enclosed), it states that, “Visitation by relatives and friends are encouraged by the Department. Visitation helps to keep the inmate’s family together. A child needs to know that his/her mother or father is still a part of his/her life and that he/she will be able to see his/her parent. A husband and wife need to be able to share his/her daily struggles and joys with each other. Visitation is also important to the morale of the inmate. Research has shown that an inmate who receives regular visits readjusts much better once he/she is released from prison.”
Those who don’t have loved ones on the inside may reason that some inmates don’t receive visitors because their families don’t care. I have spoken to many family members that, for a variety of reasons, are unable to visit although they would like to. For example, many offenders are housed at opposite ends of Pennsylvania from where their families live. Family members often don’t have the resources to visit so far away, or get days off from work that match the days when visits are allowed. (See: DC-ADM, p. 47, Family Finances, enclosed)
Sometimes, loved ones travel far distances of up to 10 hours with small children or elderly relatives, only to be turned away. Days to visit have been scaled down and there are numerous reports of prison officials treating visitors with distain and disrespect. Some family members need to work more than one job just to support their families on the outside and then there is the added cost of helping their loved ones on the inside with the high commissary costs. Inmates are employed at slave wages making anywhere from nineteen (19) to forty five (45) cents/hr. and the food budgets for the institutions keep being cut.
Not only are families paying taxes at work to support their loved one on the inside, but they typically also help them with commissary and medical co-pays so they can maintain some manner of human dignity and health.
I have heard many times, that families will save for months or even years to make a costly trip to visit a loved one on the inside. Work schedules, school schedules, institution visiting days and the weather are other factors that impact families that must travel long distances. Imagine if they were in another state?
We worry about ever increasing commissary costs, phone fees and no choice in vendors. We worry about “out of sight, out of mind” and what will happen to those on the inside that we love. If they report problems, we won’t be able to visit them to assure ourselves that they are alright. Will there be groups in other states such as the Pennsylvania Prison Society’s Official Visitors that will be able to visit our loved ones and intervene if necessary? Will the PA Official Visitors be allowed to visit out of state institutions?
Secretary Beard is quoted in the 10/15/2009 edition of the Philadelphia Enquirer “that the other states would not require any special programming, only basic religious, recreational and similar perfunctory programs.” Nothing is mentioned about education or preparing them for re-entry. Nothing is mentioned of how much it will cost Pennsylvania tax payers for each inmate transferred.
On 11/13/2009 there was a report by Andy Sheehan on KDKA news about the high cost of housing elderly lifers. It stated that housing inmates convicted of serious crimes are elderly, infirm and expensive and that their risk of committing a new crime is negligible. Rep. Frank Dermody argues that the state should more aggressively pursue alternative sentencing for many of the elderly inmates to make room for younger, violent criminals currently being housed out of state.
In the 11/04/2009 edition of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Bill Dimascio wrote an excellent article titled “Bizarro” (enclosed) about the state ignoring solutions to costly prison overcrowding. I recommend that everyone here read it.
In closing, I would just like to ask this panel to think about how they would feel if someone in their family was arrested for a crime and sentenced to prison in Pennsylvania? What if later they were told that their loved one would be moved to a far away state? Of course, no one ever thinks that one of their loved ones will ever wind up in prison. I didn’t either. Thank you.