By Karen Kane
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PENNYSLVANIA — Butler County’s new prison will be bigger than the overcrowded, deteriorating lockup that has been housing county criminals since 1956. But it’s not attached to the county courthouse.
That means officials need to get the prisoners from here to there, with “here” being about one block away from “there.”
Or maybe not, at least not all the time.
Butler County commissioners are equipping the new 512-bed prison with all the Internet wiring and outlets needed to establish video conferencing between the jail and the county’s two criminal courtrooms.
Although President Judge Thomas Doerr expects to start slow, he envisions videoconferencing playing a significant role in the criminal court system in Butler County.
Prison Warden Rich Gigliotti said it’ll work like this: Laptop computers equipped with video cameras and microphones will be available in a multipurpose room in each of six pods, or groups of cells. The prison has nine pods and each is wired for videoconferencing, but only six will be equipped with the hardware initially.
Mr. Gigliotti said a prisoner will be able to look at the laptop screen and view the courtroom where a judge will be presiding over the legal proceeding. Meanwhile, the prisoner can be viewed via the Web camera on a television-like screen in the courtroom.
Judge Doerr said he expects the videoconferencing system to be used initially during arraignments, one of the simplest kinds of criminal proceedings, during which a prisoner is advised of his rights and of what crimes he or she is being charged. Every prisoner must be arraigned when he enters the criminal court system.
“It’s only a small segment of what goes on in the courtroom, but there’s no doubt that this will eliminate some of the transports [from the new jail],” Judge Doerr said. He said he expects to expand the use of videoconferencing, but “We’ll want to get into the jail and get settled in first. We don’t need to be throwing new equations into the mix the day we take occupancy.”
Videoconferencing is unlikely ever to be used for certain kinds of proceedings, such as trials or sentencings where the rules of criminal procedure specify that defendants have the right to face their accusers and their judge.
“But, I think we could eventually do a lot with [the technology],” Judge Doerr said, noting he believes a third of all transports from the jail to the courthouse might one day be eliminated.
The reduction in prisoner transports frees up sheriff’s deputies. According to the county personnel department, deputies earn $15.67 an hour and at least two deputies must accompany a prisoner at all times.
Sheriff Denny Rickard said at least four sheriff’s deputies will be involved in the transport of every prisoner from the jail to the courthouse because the prisoner must be taken by sheriff’s van, manned by two deputies, then transferred to the custody of two other deputies in the courthouse.
Warden Gigliotti cited time and safety improvements as well.
“When we were being trained on how to set up a new prison, it was emphasized that the more we keep the prisoner in his pod, the less opportunity there is for trouble,” he said, noting that guards must be used to move a prisoner from his pod to the custody of the sheriff’s deputy, who is responsible for transport outside the prison.
Judge Doerr agreed: “The riskiest time for someone in custody is during the flow in and out of the jail. Statistically, we know that that’s the time an event is most likely to happen.”
Videoconferencing is being used in the county court system to a limited extent now. Since 2003, the county’s district judges have had conferencing equipment inside their homes to allow 24-hour-a-day preliminary arraignments of all defendants.
Also, the county’s juvenile courtroom uses videoconferencing to eliminate transporting juveniles from placement facilities to the county for routine dispositional reviews. “We use one place near Philadelphia. That’s a drive, just to bring a juvenile back for a review,” said Judge Doerr, who presides over juvenile delinquency cases. He said not a week goes by that the videoconferencing equipment isn’t used.
Sheriff Rickard is worried, though, that some court officials may think the combined use of videoconferening with the pending elimination of out-of-county prisoner transports would warrant a reduction in his office’s staff.
Sheriff’s deputies have been used for several years to transport prisoner overflow to outside facilities. Some officials have said that when the new prisons open, deputies won’t be needed for those transports.
But, Mr. Rickard said, prisoners still will need to be transported, even if for a short distance. And video conferencing will never eliminate that need.
“It’s not the panacea that some think it is. Videoconferencing will not eradicate the need for sheriff’s deputies. It can reduce it to a degree, but that’s all. That reduction will be outweighed by the increased population [in our prison],” he said. He employs 22 full-time and eight part-time deputies.
Still, Warden Gigliotti said he is happy to have videoconferencing capabilities. And the cost was minimal, he said.
County Information Technology Director Bob Moyer said the county has contracted with BT Conferencing Video, of Cranberry, to buy and install the equipment for $6,544 per courtroom. Some of that cost may be reduced if the county is able to use some equipment on hand. Maintenance will cost $850 annually.
As for the cost of equipping the jail, Mr. Moyer said the laptops cost $700 apiece and the software already is owned by the county.
Copyright 2009 P.G. Publishing Co.