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A new juvenile prison remains largely unused
Monday, March 19, 2001 By Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
When Gov. Tom Ridge won passage of his "adult time for adult crime" law in 1995, he insisted on building a special $71-million rehabilitation-oriented prison to house younger criminals convicted in the adult court system.
He wanted a place where the juveniles would be separated from older, career offenders and where the youths would receive counseling, schooling and drug and alcohol treatment. That was essential, he felt, to give the teens a chance at success when they were released.
The 500-bed prison called Pine Grove opened in January on the site of a former Christmas tree farm in Indiana County. But only about a third of its beds are filled.
That is because most of the juveniles changed under "adult time" are getting sentences of two years or less, which are served in county jails.
What that means is that most of the children affected by Ridge's "adult time" law are denied the services he wanted for them and are mixed with adult criminals anyway.
Ironically, it was Ridge himself who signed legislation relieving county jails of the duty to provide high school classes to convicted juveniles.
Ridge said he didn't know most teens were being sent to those jails. "We will have to look at that," he said.
Studies have shown that compared with children in reform schools, those incarcerated with adults are far more likely to be beaten, sexually assaulted or murdered and to commit suicide. Last year, Human Rights Watch found hundreds of Maryland children, some as young as 12, held in vermin-infested adult jails where assaults and fire-setting were common and the youths were constantly hungry.
Critics of Pine Grove also argue that if the state was going to spend $71 million on a prison that worked like a reform school, it should just have kept the youths in the juvenile system and sent them to an existing reform school, such as the one in eastern Pennsylvania on which Pine Grove's programs are based.
State Sen. Allen G. Kukovich, D-Manor, complained that the new prison is a waste because Pennsylvania has one of the best reform school systems in the country. It has varied levels of punishment, from after-school programs to lockups enclosed by razor wire. Judges from other states vie to get delinquents into some of Pennsylvania's private programs, such as George Junior Republic in Grove City.
"But saying you're good and you just need to fine tune does not score political points," Kukovich said. "It is easier to come up with bumper sticker slogans."
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