5/31/18
by News Department on 05/31/18Prison population...
The cost of housing overflow Schuylkill County prison inmates outside of the county has hit $334,619 so far this year.
As of last week, 80 inmates were housed in out-of-county prisons at a cost of about $65 per inmate per day.
The county began housing overflow inmates at other jails after the state Department of Corrections in May 2016 ordered it to stop accepting new inmates until it got the population below a daily average of 277. The DOC lifted the restriction three months later, after the county kept the numbers down.
Prison board Chairman and President Judge William E. Baldwin called for a committee to help figure out how to streamline the intake process.
The prison board is now planning an intermediate punishment facility as a way to permanently resolve the overcrowding.
