Spotlight PA: “Closing two state prisons has emerged as a way for Pennsylvania to save money and take a step closer to a balanced budget, as lawmakers contend with competing funding priorities and a structural deficit.

On the potential chopping block are two medium-security facilities: State Correctional Institution at Rockview, in Centre County, and Clearfield County’s Quehanna Boot Camp.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration has the power to close these facilities without the consent of the state legislature. Officials originally said they would announce a decision by May, but in June said “considerations were ongoing.”

Still, Shapiro included the closures in his budget proposal earlier this year, projecting the change would save the commonwealth $100 million annually once fully implemented….

‘It makes good budget sense in terms of programming and operations to decommission some of the prisons, both for their functioning and for the benefit of people incarcerated at them,’ said Noah Barth, the Pennsylvania Prison Society’s prison monitoring director.

As examples, Barth highlighted the maximum-security SCI Frackville and medium-security SCI Mahanoy. Both prisons are close to abandoned coal mines, and Frackville in 2017 faced allegations of contaminated water.

Barth also mentioned SCI Fayette, the subject of a 2014 investigation by the Abolitionist Law Center, the Center for Coalfield Justice, and the Human Rights Coalition. The report examined the adverse health impacts, including cancer, of ‘about 40 million tons of waste, two coal slurry ponds, and millions of cubic yards of coal combustion waste’ surrounding the prison.”

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