Two of the seven men questioned in the slaying of state police Cpl. Joseph Pokorny at a Carnegie hotel parking lot two weeks ago turned out to be parolees who had walked away from halfway houses and had warrants issued for their arrests.

They are among more than 1,700 former prison inmates in Pennsylvania who have failed to report to their parole officers, and many have simply disappeared from alternative housing in communities across the state. Another 50 Allegheny County jail inmates are missing from local halfway houses.

State parole agents, who are responsible for an average of more than 70 parolees apiece, are hard-pressed to help track down violators while handling the rest of their cases. The same goes for county probation officers and jail officials.

One of the fugitives questioned in the killing of Cpl. Pokorny was Tyrone Bullock, 40, a man with a record of drug offenses who had walked away in August from Renewal Inc., a Downtown facility that contracts with both the state Department of Corrections and Allegheny County.

The other was Jack Maurice Woods, 23, who disappeared in September from Ada's House in Stowe, which provides alternative housing for Allegheny County Jail inmates. As it turns out, Mr. Woods was in Ada's by mistake and should have been in jail, according to county officials.

Both fugitives were arrested but neither has been charged in the Pokorny case.

Leslie Mollett, 30, has been accused of killing Cpl. Pokorny. He was released last month from the State Correctional Institution Fayette after serving more than a year on drug charges.

The union that represents the state's 10,800 correctional officers plans to investigate Mr. Mollett's release as part of an ongoing review of the state's parole policies, said Don McNany, president of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association in Harrisburg.

The association and many of its members contend that the state is trying to ease prison overcrowding by releasing into the community or into halfway houses inmates who are not ready for society.

"The inmates do the proper head nodding and answer the right questions and they're out on the street," he said.

The corrections department denies the allegation.

"We have never released inmates as a way to deal with overcrowding in this state," said Department of Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard in a statement. "Inmates released on pre-release must meet specific criteria and seldom go out much before a few months prior to [the end of] their minimum sentence."

Mr. Beard also said that 70 percent of inmates who end up back in prison return there because of technical violations of their parole and not because they have committed a new crime.

A variety of programs

Across Pennsylvania, more than 2,800 convicts live in community alternatives to state prisons. In Allegheny County, another 340 jail inmates are housed in neighborhood settings.

The state runs some community facilities and contracts with private programs to operate others. Inmates in both are supervised by the Department of Corrections and the Board of Probation and Parole, sometimes jointly.

Only nonviolent inmates can serve sentences at the private facilities, which usually operate as work release centers. Some also contract separately as "halfway back" locations -- an alternative to prison for people who violate parole.

Pittsburgh has three state-run community correctional facilities -- in the North Side, Highland Park and Friendship. Inmates in those facilities usually are nearing their release dates.

The private programs, including Renewal and facilities in Braddock and Beaver County operated by Gateway Rehabilitation Center, are accredited by the American Correctional Association and are subject to state audits.

Inmates at the contracted facilities may be on work release, undergoing drug and alcohol counseling or taking part in other special programs. Renewal, for example, provides an intensive 90-day program for addicts who violate their probation. Their alternative is going back to prison.

Most of the 2,839 state inmates in community facilities are supervised by the state Board of Probation and Parole, either because they have violated parole or the board decided they were not ready to be put back on the street, said LeAnn Halfast, a board spokeswoman.

It's up to the board and its workers to track down inmates who walk away, Ms. Halfast said.

At the moment, 7,727 people statewide have failed to report to probation or parole officers, but about 6,000 of them are being held in county jails or other local facilities at the request of the board.

The other 1,700-plus include those, like Mr. Bullock and Mr. Woods, who walked away from community sites or otherwise failed to report to parole agents and for whom arrest warrants have been issued.

Tracking down fugitives

All told, nearly 28,800 people are on parole in Pennsylvania, and only 403 agents are assigned to keep track of them. That works out to an average case load of about 70 parolees per agent.

The 1,714 people officially listed as absconders at the end of November therefore represent 6 percent of the people under the supervision of the Board of Probation and Parole. Ms. Halfast said the national average is 9 percent.

Mr. McNany agreed that Pennsylvania's parole problems are no worse than those in other parts of the country. Penal systems everywhere are under pressure to release inmates to ease prison overcrowding while protecting the community but not spending too much money, he said.

"The whole system's way out of whack," he said.

Arrest warrants are issued within 72 hours for anyone who leaves a community site without authorization, and they are posted on state and national databases, Ms. Halfast said.

The parole board three years ago established a Fugitive Apprehension Search Team in Philadelphia to round up inmates who escape from community facilities. The program was expanded last year to include a three-person unit in Pittsburgh, and there are plans to set up teams in Erie and Harrisburg, Ms. Halfast said.

Those teams and other parole agents work closely with the U.S. Marshals Service to track down parole violators, she said. Inmates who leave state community facilities are charged with escape, the same as an inmate who escapes from prison, corrections spokeswoman Sheila Moore said.

Nonviolent jail inmates in Allegheny County can serve their sentences in one of four community facilities under contract with the county, including Renewal, or seven other private sites. The county pays a daily fee per inmate to the contracted facilities, ranging from $47.50 to $57.50. Inmates must pay their own way at non-contracted facilities, like Ada's House and the ARC House on the North Side.

If an inmate walks away, community facilities are required immediately to notify the jail's internal affairs section, the sentencing judge and county police, county jail Warden Ramon Rustin said. Internal affairs officers then obtain an escape warrant and enlist the help of county officers to track down the fugitive, Mr. Rustin said.

At any given time, there are about 50 outstanding escape warrants for county inmates who left alternative housing sites, he said.