By Tom Infield
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — It was the fifth time that the candidates for Pennsylvania governor had met in a debate. Repeatedly, they had been asked about improving public education, creating jobs, reforming Harrisburg.
But it wasn’t until last night that they faced Wayne Jacobs, a former inmate representing a group called X-Offenders for Community Empowerment.
Standing up during a debate sponsored by a coalition of left-leaning activist groups at a Center City church, Jacobs said his group believes that as many as 300,000 people in Philadelphia, or nearly a fifth of the city’s population, are former inmates. He noted that about 50,000 people are in state prisons.
“If elected governor,” he asked the candidates, “what will you do to ensure that people coming home from prison have access to the mentoring, housing, treatment, and jobs they need?”
Democrat Dan Onorato, the Allegheny County executive, said he was already working to help ex-inmates in the Pittsburgh area. He said his county had reduced inmate recidivism by 40 percent through programs that help inmates leaving the county jail to not return.
“A dollar spent there will save 10 in the criminal justice system,” he said.
Jack Wagner, the Democratic state auditor general, noted that prison costs in Pennsylvania had been rising 9 percent to 10 percent annually. He said measures to keep people out of prison should not just deal with ex-inmates but also include greater funding for schools and early-childhood education.
Joe Hoeffel, the Democratic Montgomery County commissioner, drew applause from a crowd of several hundred people at Arch Street United Methodist Church by saying: “We are putting too many nonviolent offenders and drug users in jail. . . . It is making it impossible for families to stay together and people to get on with their lives.”
State Rep. Sam Rohrer of Berks County, the lone Republican among the tableful of candidates, said prison overcrowding and the readjustment difficulties of former inmates was “an issue that tends to get shoved under the rug.”
While saying society needs to be protected from violent offenders, he agreed with the Democrats that “we have far too many people in jail who are there because of substance abuse. . . . They need to be returned to their communities.”
Among the groups sponsoring the debate before the May 18 primary were ACORN, which was accused by Republicans of voter-registration abuse during the 2008 election season, and ACT UP, which staged protests that partially shut down Center City during the 2000 GOP national convention. The sponsoring alliance also included union groups, women’s groups and antipoverty groups.
State Sen. Anthony H. Williams, a Philadelphia Democrat who joined the race two weeks ago, did not attend. Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty, also a Democrat, dropped out of the race earlier in the day with a news conference in his hometown.
Also absent was state Attorney General Tom Corbett, the endorsed Republican candidate.
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