Mar 6, 2016 3 min read

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale’s decision to perform a top-to-bottom review of the state Department of Corrections and the entire prison system couldn’t have come sooner, especially for the maximum-security facility in Greene County.

The auditor general has heard reports from across Pennsylvania in recent weeks that the continued budget stalemate is now affecting the state’s 26 prisons, as a lack of complete funding is leading to safety concerns, training problems and staffing issues.

The problems have been especially prevalent inside the State Correctional Institution at Greene near Waynesburg, where there have been three high-profile incidents in less than four months.

The biggest bombshell came Feb. 26 when three corrections officers at SCI-Greene were charged with selling contraband and electronic devices to inmates. This “rent-a-center” operation gave special privileges to inmates who were included in “The Family.”

In most cases, it would be appropriate to say that the fox is watching the henhouse, but here it seems as though the fox is watching the foxes.

That alone should raise red flags about how the prison, which holds a vast majority of the death row inmates in Pennsylvania, is being operated.

But two other incidents are also concerning.

An inmate serving a life sentence for murder was found hanging from bed sheets in his jail cell Jan. 4 in what state police investigators concluded was a suicide. Less than two months earlier, a corrections officer was stabbed nearly a dozen times with a shank while working in a general population area of the prison Nov. 19. He has recovered, but not returned to work.

Any of these incidents on their own would be of great concern, but the consecutive nature of these events raises concerns about what is really happening inside SCI-Greene.

That raises the question of whether these issues are isolated to Greene or part of a more widespread problem within the Department of Corrections. DePasquale’s impending audit, which will be released early next year, indicates it’s the latter.

“Anytime you have a stabbing, that’s obviously concerning,” DePasquale said of the SCI-Greene prisoner assault. “I’m not going to say that type of thing is happening everywhere, but we’re getting concerns all cross the state. We thought it was necessary to take a look at the whole system.”

And that brings us back to the absurd budget impasse and how its impact is trickling down to many services in the state.

A Department of Corrections spokeswoman even admitted that some of the “lesser training” programs for corrections officers are being put on hold because of funding issues.

Meanwhile, DOC Secretary John Wetzel told the state House’s Appropriations Committee last week they are pulling payments from the Treasury Department to pay for “mission critical” initiatives for care, custody and control of inmates.

That’s why DePasquale’s audit is so important to get to the root of these issues – and specifically what is happening inside SCI-Greene – to learn whether the budget bickering is posing a danger to Pennsylvania.

Here’s hoping that the budget debacle has been settled by the time DePasquale’s report is released next year.

But with the way state government is operating nowadays, that might be asking for too much.