Greenleaf’s Bill Aims to Reduce the Number of Inmates

Willow Grove based State Senator Stuart Greenleaf, R-12, recently proposed a bill which has gained approval in the Pennsylvania House and Senate that will try to keep parolees who violate their parole with minor infractions out of state jails.

The bill aimed to lower state prison cost in the tight economy is aiming to reduce prison time given for parolees who report past their set curfew or failing to report to a parolee agent.

These technical violations lead to an average sentence of 14 months in Pennsylvania prisons. In 2008 alone 3,000 parolees were sent to state prisons for technical violations.

"It is senseless and wasteful to incarcerate otherwise law-abiding parolees for such minor infractions," Greenleaf told a Scranton newspaper.

The bill would also give the state prison system the right to release an inmate if they have reached their minimum time they were sentenced too and the state can agree on safe parolee requirements.

In its first year the measure proposed by Greenleaf would reduce the state prison population by 950 inmates and by 1,600 every year following.

More than 50,000 inmates are held in Pennsylvania a prison which is 7,000 inmates more than the state’s prisons are designed to hold. Pennsylvania is in the process of building several new facilities to hold these inmates.

Tom Sofield (tsofield@buxmontnews.com)
Online Editor