Jan 23, 2017 3 min read

Consider the following: In 1980, Pennsylvania had about 8,000 inmates in its prisons, which, at that time, numbered eight.

Thirty-seven years later, Pennsylvania has 26 prisons and close to 50,000 inmates, enough to fill PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh twice over, with 10,000 more left out in the cold.

The mania for prison construction started in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993, at roughly the same time crime reached a peak in the United States, Pennsylvania opened five prisons. However, crime has been declining since, with explanations ranging from the aging of the baby boomer cohort to the decrease in the amount of lead being used in paint and gasoline. Mandatory minimum sentences that lengthened so many prison terms and created a conveyor belt of inmates have also fallen out of fashion or been shot down by the courts. As a result,the specter of closing prisons has been raised.

On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is expected to announce that two of the state’s prisons will be closing this summer. SCI-Greene is safe, but the prison in Pittsburgh is being eyed for closure, as are the facilities in Wayne, Luzerne, Mercer and Schuylkill counties.

Though officials cite tumbling crime rates and new approaches in sentencing certain types of criminals, the most presssing reason for shuttering the prisons is money. The commonwealth is staring at a budget deficit somewhere in the vicinity of $1.7 billion, and closing up two prisons would yield savings of $90 million to $160 million, according to several reports. This would take a small bite of the $2 billion that is spent every year on corrections, the third most expensive item in the state’s budget, bested only by education and human services.

Even though this is not the first time Pennsylvania has closed prisons in recent years – facilities in Westmoreland and Cambria counties were emptied in 2013 – there have been questions about whether the system would be strained by prisoners being shifted to other locations. Lawmakers have also come to the defense of the prisons in their districts, saying they are job providers and closing them would have a highly detrimental impact on local economies.

But should prisons serve as a generator of make-work jobs? The prison in Wayne County, for example, has an annual budget close to $100 million. Each inmate costs taxpayers a little more than $48,000 each year to house and feed. If there is some way for this to be carried out more efficiently, or in a way that lightens the load of taxpayers, then it should be done. Of course, inmates should be treated humanely, and workers should be given opportunities to be transfered to other prisons or apply for other jobs.

Officials should also keep the well-being of the commonwealth’s residents in mind – no prisoners who would pose a genuine threat to public safety should be let loose in order to just save money.

If the Corrections Department can effectively make the case that two prisons within the system are no longer needed, that’s something Pennsylvania residents should celebrate.