Across the Pennsylvania suburbs, the jails are crowded.
As soon as next week, Bucks County could approve plans to
spend up to $14 million to add 160 beds to its detention facilities. That would
follow similar expansions in recent years by Montgomery and Chester Counties.
"Our population has been growing steadily over the last
10 years, to the point where it's really gotten quite difficult to
maintain," William Plantier, Bucks County's director of corrections, said
Tuesday.
According to figures provided by Montgomery, Chester, and
Bucks Counties, the average daily population in county prisons - where most
inmates are awaiting trial or serving shorter sentences for nonviolent crimes -
has risen over the last five years.
Montgomery County leads the pack with a jump of nearly 10
percent, from an average of 1,768 inmates daily in 2009 to 1,940 in 2013,
figures show.
Bucks County's average increased by about 9 percent over
that time.
And while Chester County's statistics are not as linear, its
average bounced between a low of 915 daily inmates in 2010 to a high of 990 in
2012.
Delaware County did not provide figures.
Experts offered a variety of reasons for why jail
populations could be rising.
Joanne Metzger, an assistant professor of criminal justice
at Temple University, said vigorous prosecution of drug-related crime in the
suburbs may be related. And Alan Harland, an emeritus criminal justice
professor at Temple, said "a huge part" of the problem is the amount
of time people spend jailed while awaiting hearings for probation or parole
violations.
"You can save huge numbers of jail-bed days . . . just
by changing scheduling procedures and expediting processes," he said.
Montgomery County spent $23 million to add a wing for about
500 nonviolent offenders to its facility in 2010.
And nine years ago, Chester County spent more than $48
million to nearly double its jail's capacity, said county spokeswoman Rebecca
Brain.
Construction is the approach Bucks is considering.
According to Plantier, the county's Department of
Corrections developed a two-stage proposal, which will likely be discussed by
the county commissioners at their meeting next week.
One step calls for spending $4 million to renovate vacant
space and add 60 beds to a minimum-security women's facility the county
operates on its jail campus near Doylestown.
A second step calls for spending $14 million to add an
adjacent building with 100 more beds for female inmates.
Completing either phase would allow the county to bring back
some female inmates who have to be jailed elsewhere when there is no room in
county facilities.
It's not clear which option the commissioners favor.
District Attorney David Heckler - a former president judge -
said he believes crowded jails make judges less likely to sentence defendants
to prison.
"I think that becomes a part of the reality," he
said. "It certainly had been articulated regularly by the members of the
bench when I was attending the prison board meetings."
Plantier is simply hoping for more beds to alleviate
overcrowding.
Both options, he said, would "give us some relief in a
relatively short term."
BY THE NUMBERS
1,940 Daily inmates in Montgomery County in 2013.
951Daily inmates in Chester County.
841Daily inmates in Bucks County.
Delaware County did not supply a daily inmate number.
Source: Philly.com
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