By Bill Wellock
The Citizens’ Voice
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Overcrowding is absolutely an issue at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, said Mark Rockovich, director of correctional services.
County management will take a closer look at overcrowding problems at the facility, County Manager David Pedri said Tuesday. A group of officials called the Prison Population Task Force will review issues with the number of inmates housed at the building.
The group will include Rockovich, Court Administrator Michael Shucosky, Chief Public Defender Steven Greenwald, Luzerne-Wyoming Counties Mental Health and Developmental Services Deputy Administrator Tara Vallet, District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis, conflict counsel administrator John Hakim and Probation Services Director Michael Vecchio.
The group will meet for the first time Friday.
“It’s not a problem you can blame on one group or agency. We have to start looking at things a bit differently. If that’s what we’re going to do, I applaud that,” Rockovich said.
The prison is designed to hold about 510 inmates. When the population exceeds that number, it makes the job of correctional services more difficult, Rockovich said. Moving inmates around and keeping the building safe becomes harder when it exceeds capacity.
As of Tuesday, there were 518 inmates at the facility.
The average cost to hold an inmate for a day is about $105, which is the average daily budget divided by the population, Rockovich said.
Running the prison requires balancing several objectives. Prudent financial management, security of correctional officers and the well-being of inmates all become part of the calculus for making decisions, and are all factors the task force will consider.
The group will look at specific cases and overall policy, Pedri said.
The facility process people nearly every day, and can move as many as 30 inmates per day and an average of 400 inmates per month, Rockovich said.
Many are awaiting trial but haven’t posted bail, so they remain housed in the facility. That population can also change daily, but as of Tuesday, about 45 percent of the inmates were awaiting trial, Rockovich said. If those inmates post bail, the total population decreases.
“Bail is just to secure them showing up to a hearing, but if they spend six months in jail before they are sentenced, it creates a problem with population,” he said.
The task force will try to find ways to move suspects through the criminal justice system and find alternative means of corrections, such as a day reporting center and pre-release programs.
“We already have those,” Rockovich said, “but let’s try to use them to the fullest extent possible.”
Those programs also have the benefit of teaching people who have been in the criminal justice system other ways of thinking, skills and job training.
Pedri plans to address county council at its Sept. 13 meeting on the group’s discussions.