Gov. Shapiro: Shut down SCI Fayette!
Workers World, 2/12/25: “Participants in a rally and march held in downtown Philadelphia on Feb.8 demanded that Pennsylvania Gov Josh Shapiro declare SCI Fayette as one of two of the state’s 23 prisons he said should be shut down this year. He declared this in his annual State Budget Address. Shapiro is not motivated by any moral or altruistic ideals but by the prospect of saving $110 million.
Around 50 people joined the protest despite the cold winter chill. Following a rally at Love Plaza, the protesters marched to the governor’s Philadelphia office at 8th and Arch streets for a closing rally.
The Toxic Prisons Committee, a branch of the Human Rights Coalition (HRC), has been working to have SCI Fayette shut down since 2014. The facility was built in Luzerne Township, Pennsylvania, in 2003 on part of a Coal Refuse Deposit Superfund site next to a 506-acre coal ash dump.
The land was declared contaminated and could not be easily sold; however, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections bought it and erected a prison there. The Superfund site was contaminated by 50 tons of coal ash waste, with more being trucked in every day by Matt Canestrale Contracting, which owns the site.”