7/24/15
by News Department on 07/24/15
If Schuylkill County fails to get its prison population down to capacity levels by Nov. 24, the state could take steps to bar it from accepting new inmates.
President Judge William Baldwin said they could effectively close the prison down.
In a related matter, commissioners at a public meeting Wednesday authorized the "development and execution" of contracts/memorandums of understanding with other counties to use their prisons to house excess inmates.Which prisons would house Schuylkill inmates and at what cost per day has yet to be determined.
The county prison, on Sanderson Street in Pottsville, has a capacity of 277 inmates. But the actual number of prisoners has for more than three years routinely exceeded that, and too many inmates are being triple-celled for too long in violation of state law.
