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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Lindsay Nichols, PSCOA, Public Relations Phone: 717-975-0138 Fax: 717-975-0167 Email: lnichols@pscoa.org Website: www.pscoa.org
HARRISBURG – June 5, 2003 — A majority of Pennsylvania voters oppose the Rendell administration’s proposal to close two state prisons as part of an effort to reduce the state’s deficit, according to a statewide poll. “The voters understand that this is a bad idea, one that could endanger people’s lives,” said Roy Pinto, a vice president at the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association (PSCOA). “This is a public safety issue which needs to be addressed and not be pushed aside. Our members will continue to rally against closing these prisons,” Pinto said. According to the Triad/Susquehanna poll, 55 percent of the voters said they opposed the proposal. A total of 677 Pennsylvania registered voters were surveyed last month by Susquehanna Polling and Research, a leading public opinion survey firm in the state. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.79 percent. The Rendell administration has proposed closing the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh (SCI Pittsburgh) and SCI Waynesburg. Under the plan now being considered by the Department of Corrections, Waynesburg prison would close by the end of this year and SCI-Pittsburgh several months later. A new prison in Fayette County is slated to open in August but that facility will not be able to house all the inmates from the two prisons that are closing. Even without the closings, Pennsylvania’s state prisons currently are operating significantly over design capacity. PSCOA released the poll results as the General Assembly and the Rendell administration are debating the state’s budget crisis. “Keeping these two facilities open is our top priority,” Pinto said. “We’re hopeful that the administration and lawmakers will understand what our members are confronting daily – overcrowded prisons that can easily turn to powder-kegs. PSCOA represents 9,800 corrections staffers across the state. PSCOA was formed in 1998 and the union began officially representing the prison staffers in June, 2001 after winning a bid to part from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. In the poll, respondents were not informed that the state’s prison system was currently at 114 percent capacity, with slightly more than 40,000 inmates housed in 27 facilities. “If we had explained to people that the prisons are already severely overcrowded and or that increasing double-celling is a safety hazard for corrections officers and for every staffer in these facilities, more people would have been opposed to the plan,” Pinto said. For more information on the statewide poll, go to www.pscoa.org.
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