Articles & News

January 6, 2008

PA's Bucks County seeks to keep prisoners from coming back

By: JENNA PORTNOY, Bucks County Courier Times

Bucks County plans to request proposals from outside agencies that could build and operate a facility to prepare inmates for return to the community.

Corrections Director Harris Gubernick said the facility is a possible alternative to expanding the jail in Doylestown Township and would not require the county to embark on another pricy building project. (Work has already started on a $22 million garage to serve a multimillion-dollar justice center in downtown Doylestown.)

"The main goal is to look, as we deal with jail crowding, to find a logical solution to the crowding without compromising public safety," he said. "Traditional incarceration for all offenders is not the answer. Even those returning to the community need some skills so they can identify pro-social life skills."

Gubernick said he would like to expose most of the 7,000 offenders who are released from county corrections each year to "programming on the way out the door."

"Of that, 5,000 to 6,000 are discharged to the community and that's the number of people you're going to impact through programming like this," he said.

"It's not just reducing our population, it's dealing with our population effectively so hopefully they don't come back."

The county already partners with the Coleman Hall treatment center in Northeast Philadelphia, where up to 20 work-release inmates are housed daily, but he said inmates would benefit from a more "intense experience."

Once proposals for a re-entry facility come in to the county, Gubernick said, the prison oversight board will make a recommendation to commissioners, who will make the final decision.

President Judge David Heckler said the creation of a re-entry facility would continue the county's tradition of dealing with offenders in progressive ways. For example, he said, Bucks may have been the first county in the state to institute a work-release program.

It would make sense to create a re-entry program in the lower third of the county, where inmates can access employment and public transportation after their release, Heckler said.
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Currently, county corrections tends to find inmates jobs near the jail, but the lack of bus routes from Lower Bucks makes it difficult for them to maintain employment upon release.

"When you're talking about re-entry and continuity," Heckler said, "it would be vastly better to have them work close to home where they can flow seamlessly into jobs after release or stay with it when they leave custody."

A re-entry facility would also provide a venue for "quick repercussions of a proportionate sort" in the case of probation violations, he said. Offenders can be ordered to return for particular classes, he said.

The county is also on the verge of amending policies and procedures to reflect a focus on re-entry.

Sean Ryan, chief adult probation officer, said probation and parole officers will conduct classes early in an offender's sentence to explain what they need to do to be considered good candidates for parole.

Although looking toward the date of release may seem like common sense for some inmates, Ryan said the prison culture hasn't always prioritized long-term planning.

"We want them to be thinking that way from day one," he said.

"The offender needs to take responsibility for their re-entry. It puts the onus on the offender, not on the system."

The collaboration between the courts and corrections began about six months ago and could be put into practice as early as this month.

No additional staff or capital funding is needed, he said.

Ryan also emphasized the need for substance-abuse and mental-health services as well as affordable housing in the community as a component of successfully transitioning an inmate into society.

"We're not reinventing the wheel," he said.

"We're just bringing it to fruition in Bucks County. It's just a way of working smarter with the resources we have."