Members of the Reimagine Justice Lancaster coalition renewed their request for a collaborative county-community “safety and justice working group” to the Lancaster County commissioners Tuesday morning.
It’s essential for the county to re-evaluate its approach to incarceration and criminal justice, they said, before it signs off on building the nearly 1,000-bed correctional facility depicted in the draft schematic design that was released in August.
“This is our opportunity to take the time to get this right,” said Jennifer Kurtz of Power Interfaith, one of the more than half a dozen advocates who addressed the commissioners at their weekly work session. (They included Julie Kennedy, who is director of advocacy & engagement at United Way of Lancaster County.)
- Previous coverage: Advocates make case for justice reform, announce plan to petition commissioners for working group
The community and its government need to look together at the “big picture” of criminal justice in Lancaster County, said the Rev. Jason Perkowski, also of Power Interfaith. The opportunities to comment at county meetings and correctional facility listening sessions have been welcome, but that’s not the same as having an ongoing group of stakeholders who meet regularly and can discuss and deliberate in depth, he said.
Members of the coalition have been pushing for changes in bail and other criminal justice policies, and a correspondingly downsized new jail, since the new project was first announced.
On Tuesday, in support of their case, they provided the commissioners a white paper (PDF) prepared by the Vera Institute of Justice. Drawing from local data, it contends that Lancaster County is over-incarcerating and underfunding social services.
“A new jail will come at a heavy cost and effectively commit the county to a high level of incarceration moving forward,” it says.
Fundamentally, the community and county government want the same things, said Michelle Batt, founder of the Lancaster Bail Fund: A safe community, reduced recidivism and prudent, responsible use of public money. Those goals would be better served by a smaller jail and investments in “preventive community-based services,” she said.
Batt’s colleague, Jessica Lopez, the Bail Fund’s lead advocate and community organizer, called for more support for affordable housing, youth activities and crisis intervention.
“We just hope that you would start investing and funding in our people,” she said.
At issue: The schematic design
The schematic design, which is awaiting the commissioners’ action, proposes a 994-bed facility of 433,018 square feet. It offers a preliminary cost estimate of $890 to $940 per square foot, which would yield a total cost of of $385 million to $407 million.
At last month’s Prison Board meeting, commissioners Josh Parsons and Ray D’Agostino said they aren’t fully ready to commit to the proposed size and want to see more options before proceeding.
The coalition previously requested a working group in May. At that meeting, Commissioner Alice Yoder endorsed the idea, while commissioners D’Agostino and Parsons were skeptical.
The same dynamic played out on Tuesday.
Yoder said she’s “100% supportive” of a working group and would be happy to serve on it. She said she’d like to look at increasing the correctional facility’s focus on mental health and substance abuse treatment, and to see whether it would be less expensive if part of it were reimagined as a “quasi mental health hospital,” with a correspondingly lower level of security requirements.
D’Agostino said that while there’s always room for improvement, it’s important to acknowledge that Lancaster County already has a broad array of social services, encompassing healthcare, mental health, substance abuse treatment, youth welfare and housing assistance, as well as diversion courts.
If Commissioner Yoder wants to take part in the working group, that’s fine, he said, but he’s not in favor of the county’s administration taking part in discussions of issues outside its purview — in this case, criminal justice policy, which is the responsibility of law enforcement and the court system.
There’s no reason Reimagine Justice can’t pursue its objectives on its own, he said, as he and his colleagues did when he was in the nonprofit housing sector.
“The most meaningful things that happen in the community are community-led,” he said. “So, I encourage you to do that.”
Commissioner Parsons said he would review the group’s data. He reiterated that he’s not convinced the county needs a 1,000-bed facility but cautioned that it has to be built at a size that will serve 50 to 100 years in the future.
Yes, the majority of inmates are held pre-trial, he acknowledged, but in many instances they’ve committed parole or probation violations, and there has to be a consequence for that. Overall Lancaster County is one of the safest in Pennsylvania, and the commissioners want to keep it that way, he said.
President Judge David Ashworth heads the county’s court administration. He has consistently said that a working group to review court practices is out of the question. The court system must follow state law and Supreme Court guidance, and its operational decisions are not subject to community review.
The Vera Institute report
In its report, the Vera Institute notes that criminal justice makes up a large portion of the local county budget, with $23 out of every $100 in property taxes going to the County Prison alone. It also notes that the prison assesses commissary fees and other fees on its inmates, who are disproportionately poor and non-White.
The county’s social services have significant gaps, it says. The vast majority of funding for those services comes from state and federal sources; boosting local funding “could safely reduce incarceration and even save the county money,” it argues.
The county public defender’s office and diversion courts should be expanded, it says. Regarding the latter, it notes that the diversion courts admitted just 55 defendants in 2022, “suggesting they are vastly underutilized.”
Speakers on Tuesday provided additional statistics. Black defendants in Lancaster County are charged cash bail more frequently and at higher amounts than White ones, said Isabel Castillo, director of the Center for Racial & Gender Equality at YWCA Lancaster, citing ACLU of Pennsylvania data included in the county Racial Equity Profile that was released in 2023.
The three-year recidivism rate in the County Prison’s MISA population (mental health and substance abuse) is 59%, and among graduates of its New Beginnings reentry program it’s 65%, said Beth Reeves of Power Interfaith. She suggested Lancaster County adopt supportive housing programs to keep people from cycling in and out of jail, citing programs in Denver and New York City as models.
Parsons said that doesn’t persuade him, because Denver and New York aren’t as safe as Lancaster County. He accused the group of parroting “national talking points” and Castillo of making accusations without evidence. The bail data should be adjusted to account for the seriousness of charges, he said, suggesting that would account for the disparities.
Lopez accused Parsons of “gaslighting,” of refusing to acknowledge that Reimagine Justice had data to back up its claims.
“Lancaster County Prison doesn’t make anybody safer,” she said. “Let’s be honest about that. Don’t attack us because we are attacking the issues.”
It’s not gaslighting, Parsons responded, and the County Prison is one of the reasons Lancaster County is as safe as it is, along with the rest of the county’s public safety system.
Once the commissioners approve a schematic design, with or without amendments, the design team can begin fleshing it out and, eventually, creating a set of construction documents.
The timeline on the correctional facility project website calls for bidding to happen in the second half of 2025 and groundbreaking toward the end of that year. Construction is expected to take about two years.
