DeWeese: Prison Cancellation Will Cost 700 Jobs

Democratic State Representative Bill DeWeese contends the Corbett Administration's decision to cancel a planned 200-million dollar state prison was politically motivated.
DeWeese says Governor Tom Corbett's cancellation of the Fayette County facility isn't about cost-savings and need, but has more to do with the fact Corbett charged the lawmaker with theft and conspiracy in December 2009, for allegedly campaigning with state resources.
The prison would have been located within DeWeese's district.

"He and I have had some challenges, to be polite and euphemistic, relative to the past. But that's in another arena. He's the chief executive of 12.6 million people. My 60-thousand folks elected me to go to Harrisburg and serve, and this is an aggressive slap in the face."

DeWeese says construction on the prison would have begun in a matter of weeks, and the cancelation will cost the district more than 700 jobs.
In the press release announcing the move, Acting Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said the 200-million dollar facility isn't needed, and that other prisons are under-utilized.
DeWeese questions the argument, pointing out Pennsylvania is still exporting prisoners to Michigan and Virginia.
Corbett's spokesman did not respond to calls for comment.

Study: Trying Kids as Adults Expensive, Ineffective

A new study from the University of Texas at Austin says underage offenders sentenced as adults are more likely to return to prison than those tried as juveniles. Lead author and public affairs professor Michele Deitch says in Pennsylvania, current law allows kids’ cases to transfer to adult courts, and from there, harsh mandatory sentences can victimize juveniles. She says theoretically, a seven-year-old convicted of murder would serve life without parole in an adult prison. Not that it would definitely be a long term; Deitch says she found that imprisoned children are 36 times more likely to commit suicide than their adult counterparts.

Deitch says as a compromise between a fair punishment and protecting kids, many states have introduced ‘blended sentencing.’ “Typically, it will be a juvenile sentence combined with a suspended adult sentence, and when the kid reaches the age of majority in that state, they go back before the judge, who gets to take a second look at them and figure out, ‘Did they get a chance to rehabilitate? Did they take advantage of programmatics, opportunities in the juvenile prison?’” says Deitch.

She says the blended method would be more effective than the state’s current system, because kids who go through the adult system have a higher recidivism rate and are more than twice as expensive to house. Deitch says this needless waste of taxpayer money is exacerbated by the lack of severity of many kids’ crimes. “Almost half of them are there for property offenses or even public order offenses, so these are not necessarily the headline-worthy cases. We’re finding extreme arbitrariness, unpredictability and even racial disparities in decisions about whether a child should be transferred to an adult court,” says Deitch.

She says lawmakers need to recognize there are middle-ground solutions. “We could still recognize that children are children, and that they have the potential to change and rehabilitate, and that they’re not as blameworthy as adults, and so we shouldn’t be posing as harsh sentences on them,” says Deitch.