By P.J. Reilly
The Intelligencer Journal/New Era
LANCASTER, Pa. — Lancaster County Prison Warden Vince Guarini knows his inmates highly value their weekly face-to-face visitations with friends and family.
It’s a privilege that’s growing increasingly rare in the corrections community, he said. Many jails are shifting to noncontact visits by video or separating inmates from visitors with glass to save money on guards.
“I know we’re one of the only ones left doing it,” Guarini said of contact visitations. “It’s a behavioral tool. Basically, you’re getting the chance to see your family, and you don’t have a piece of glass in between.
“The behavior tool is, you mess up in visitation and you don’t get it. If you’re a disciplinary case, you don’t get visitation, and these guys look forward to it.”
A review of prison operations completed in November by Carter Goble Associates Inc. recommends the county prison board end contact visitations as a cost-saving measure.
“Discontinue the practice of contact visitation,” the consultant’s report states. “Staff associated with this activity could be reassigned to supplement ... staff deficiencies ...”
“Replace current practice with noncontact visitation or video visitation.”
Jean Bickmire, legislative director for Justice & Mercy Inc., a nonprofit organization that advocates for criminal justice reform in Pennsylvania, said she knows the county prison could save money by doing away with contact visitations.
But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.
“You can see somebody through glass, but it’s not the same as being able to touch them,” said Bickmire, who also is a member of the county prison’s Visitation Committee. “How can (inmates) relate to society if they lose their personal connections with their families?”
No decision has been made by the prison board on Carter Goble’s recommendation, nor is there a timeline to do so. But the idea is on the table.
“I do see the carrot end of (contact visitation), but you can see the economic impact it causes us as well,” said county commissioners Chairman Scott Martin, who also is a member of the prison board. “I’m hoping technology can help encourage people that they don’t have to worry about finding a babysitter for their kids. They can (visit an inmate) right from the comfort of their home.”
Under current policy at the county prison, inmates in the general population who are not being disciplined are allowed to have one one-hour visit per week with two people at a time.
Visitors are led into a large open room with two rows of chairs facing each other. They sit down in one row before inmates are brought in to occupy seats in the other row.
Visitors and inmates are allowed to hug and kiss each other at the beginning and end of their meetings. Touching is otherwise prohibited, except an inmate can sit with a small child on his or her lap through a visit.
Before a visitation, visitors go through a metal detector and can be searched.
Inmates are strip-searched after every visitation.
With a prison population of nearly 1,200, visitations are conducted seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., with breaks around lunch and dinner times.
Carter Goble found it takes 5.5 full-time staff members to implement these visitations, plus a varying number of staff to escort prisoners to and from visitations all day long.
“The consultant is unaware of any other county in Pennsylvania that implements correctional visitation in this fashion,” the report states.
State prisons regularly allow contact visits.
If Lancaster County eliminated contact visits, it could save money by reassigning staff dedicated to those visits to other tasks where staffing deficiencies exist and overtime is frequently paid.
The report did not specify an amount that could be saved.
“Noncontact visitation will require a one-time expenditure for facility modifications” to install glass partitions, the report states. “Video visitation will require expenditure for installation and hardware.
“The capital expenditure for noncontact or video visitation should be weighed against the savings realized in staff costs and should take into consideration how much longer the county plans to stay in the existing facility.”
Besides the visitation practice, the prison board also is weighing a host of options for dealing with overcrowding at the prison, ranging from doing nothing to building a modest minimum-security work-release center to building a whole new prison.
Commissioner Craig Lehman, who also serves on the prison board, said he’s opposed to ending contact visitations.
“I don’t see any value in alienating these people any more than they already are,” he said.
Besides the value to the inmates of contact visits, Bickmire said it’s just as important for their families - especially children.
“Children are also victims who are traumatized by this,” she said. “They need that contact with their parents just as much, and maybe more, than the parents need it.”
“What’s the value to our society of that?”
Copyright 2011 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.