Tuesday, August 24, 2004
The latest date for completion of the new county jail is April 2005.
MERCER, Pa. -- The Mercer County Prison Board wants to begin charging all of the inmates assigned to its Intermediate Punishment Program $50 a month.
The board approved the plan Monday and will petition Mercer County Common Pleas Court for permission to implement the fee.
The goal is to recoup some of the costs incurred in running IPP, said James Epstein, Mercer County district attorney and chairman of the prison board.
Only convicted, non-violent offenders are eligible to participate.
Epstein estimated that between 50 and 100 inmates would be affected at any given time.
IPP, created by the court, is a program that allows nonviolent offenders to avoid being locked up in jail for their offenses.
It's an umbrella designation for a number of individual programs such as house arrest and the Day Reporting Center where house arrest inmates are required to check in on a daily basis.
Inmates already pay a separate fee for the house arrest program.
Sharing inmates
In a related matter, the board authorized IPP to contact its counterpart in neighboring Lawrence County to determine whether Lawrence wants to make use of Mercer County's Day Reporting Center.
Epstein said the program has room to add Lawrence County inmates.
Lawrence doesn't have a reporting center of its own, Epstein said.
In other matters, Jeff Gill, Mercer County Jail warden, said the new 265-bed county jail that was to be completed in January 2005 won't be finished until April 2005.
It probably will be May or June before the county can actually occupy the facility being built in Findley Township, Gill said.
Weather, particularly an extremely wet summer last year, put the project behind schedule, he said.
Work began in July 2003. Final costs haven't been determined yet, but county officials are estimating the new jail will cost about $22 million.