Waymart prison decision this week

DAVID HULSE
Posted 1/25/17

HONESDALE, PA — Regional officials were scheduled to learn the fate of Waymart’s state prison on January 26, following a January 23 hearing in Harrisburg. Given the Commonwealth’s …

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Waymart prison decision this week

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HONESDALE, PA — Regional officials were scheduled to learn the fate of Waymart’s state prison on January 26, following a January 23 hearing in Harrisburg.

Given the Commonwealth’s impending $600 million budget deficit, state officials decided that two of the Pennsylvania’s 22 state correctional institutions (SCIs) must close. Five candidates for closure were chosen. They include SCI Mercer in the northwest, SCI Pittsburgh and three in the east: SCI Frackville in Schuykill County, SCI Retreat in Luzerne County and SCI Waymart in Wayne.

Wayne County Commissioners Chair Brian Smith said Wayne and neighboring counties have been actively supporting the retention of Waymart. Smith said the Wayne Commissioners had prepared letters for the governor and secretary of corrections, and they testified at the Senate hearing on the subject.

The 439-acre Waymart SCI was opened in 1989 at the site of Farview State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, a maximum security facility, which was completed in 1911.

Smith said the prison’s location was “a perfect spot, long accepted by local residents for over 100 years.”

It has also provided jobs for decades. Of some 685 employees, the majority, 390, are Lackawanna County residents, but the second largest group is 193 from Wayne.

Fifty-two of those jobs belong to Susquehanna County residents. Meeting on January 19, the Wayne Commissioners received a letter from the Susquehanna commissioners supporting Wayne’s efforts and echoing Wayne’s concern at the loss of jobs and the hospital component.

The hospital unit at the prison provides drug-treatment access comparable only to services in distant Norristown, where there is commonly a four-hour waiting period, Smith said.

Given its location just off U.S. Route 6, the prison has excellent transportation access and utility services, including a new gas line and off-site municipal sewer and water, Smith said. He went on, “The loss of the prison would create a $30,000 monthly loss for the sewer authority.”

The community economy is impacted by prison employees, Commissioner Joseph Adams noted. “There’s a new convenience store and gas station just opened there, an investment of a few million dollars. There will be no traffic there if the prison closes.”

The medium-security SCI Waymart was initially rushed into opening to house inmates displaced by rioting at the state’s Camp Hill Prison. Waymart, since combined with Farview, has a capacity of 1,522 and currently houses 1,365 inmates (89.7% capacity).

SCI Waymart adjoins the 448-acre federal prison, USP Canaan.

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