Published Tuesday, December 17, 2002
to hire
6 guards
Herald Staff Writer
Mercer County Prison Board is working on a temporary fix to ease its shortage of housing for female prisoners. The county jail can currently house up to 10 women in its female section. Currently, the jail has more than 30 women prisoners.
The board opened discussion on the "crisis situation," as District Attorney James Epstein called it, at their regular meeting Monday afternoon.
Overcrowding hit a high Thursday when the county housed 16 women and sent 24 to other county jails. It costs about $50 per day to house prisoners in other jails, Warden Jeffrey Gill said.
Gill proposed rearranging prison quarters to lower the county's costs. He suggested moving women into the work-release section of the jail, which holds 24 people, and moving work-release prisoners into the female area. There are currently about 11 work-release prisoners, Gill said.
The extra space will provide flexibility he didn't have before, Gill said, and will cut down on costs housing female prisoners in other jails.
Sheriff's deputies transport prisoners to Cambria, Lawrence, Jefferson and Clearfield counties when its jail is full.
Currently, the women are indirectly supervised, that is, female corrections officers check on the prisoners periodically. Moving the women to the work-release section of the jail, Gill said, would mean the county would have to hire additional part-time guards.
"Don't try to make us happy," Epstein told Gill. "Tell us what you need."
Gill said he needed four female and two male guards to staff the wing. With the additional staffers, Gill said, the women will be constantly guarded, 24 hours a day, by female guards. The male staffers would be used to staff the control room where the female officers are currently posted.
The part-time guards will be authorized to work up to 30 hours a week, at a rate of $9.69 an hour. When the new county jail is built, the part-time workers will be moved up to full time.
Currently, the jail employs six full-time and two part-time female guards.
The board authorized Gill to start the hiring process through the Sharon-based Career Link of Mercer County.
When the new, 266-bed jail is built, Gill said, the female section will house almost 50 women.
You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Amanda Smith-Teutsch at: ateutsch@sharonherald.com