I once made myself a promise not to write about Corrections. Being a corrections officer, I always said no good could come from writing about Corrections. However, the Commonwealth Foundation, a free market, conservative think tank recently released an article that is making me break that promise.
Warning Pennsylvanians’ of a so-called “fear mongering campaign” in the works, Katrina Currie’s article “Government Union Jeopardizes Criminal Justice Reform” (http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/...) uses the charge she levies against the PSCOA (Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association) to counter a report by Donald Gilliland in the Patriot-News.
In the Patriot-News article “Plan to reduce number of inmates in Pennsylvania faces critics” by Donald Gilliland (http://www.pennlive.com/...), we see President of the PSCOA Roy Pinto responding to claims that the Governors’ budget expects to cut the state prison population by more than 2500 inmates next year. In the usual tit for tat between Union officials and Executive Appointees we see, President Pinto making the case, which I can personally attest for, that the Commonwealth’s prisons are overcrowded.
While clearing the clog in the parole system that allows releases to take up to 100 days from being granted parole will help with minuscule population cuts, this will not close housing units like Secretary Wetzel claims. When you get down to the numbers, you see the cuts that the Secretary is speaking about is 90 dollars a day. 90 dollars a day, in 1.8 billion dollar a year budget equals 32,850 dollars. When your talking about the hundred days the Secretary is talking about it equals 9,000 dollars. That is little more than a pin prick.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania needs real criminal justice reforms, not the usual Conservative claim of Ms. Currie that the PSCOA is only worried about their jobs. These small cuts are what lack teeth, not President Pinto’s words. According to a January 2011 report by the Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner, the prison population is projected to grow from 51,487 in 2010 to 61,146 by 2014. How is the 286 or so parolees clogging up the prison system going to fix the burden on the taxpayers in the face of a near 10,000 projected rise in incarceration in the next 2 years.
We have a serious problem in the Commonwealth that creative accounting, nor blaming public sector unions will fix. We need a realistic, bi-partisan effort to fix the problem that the Correction system faces in Pennsylvania. The entire structure must be examined and a concerted effort to make real improvements must be made. Prison’s are not a place to invest taxpayers money, you do not see a return from the money you put in. Think of the money that is being unnecessarily diverted from education, public welfare, public roads and other budgets that contribute to the common good. Until we find a way to control the current overcrowding and future projections for our prison population, arguing over 90 dollars a day will do nothing but distract us from the necessary course.