Region has high rate of women committed to state prisons
More women sentenced to prison in Fayette County find themselves going to a state facility to serve that time than most all other counties in the state.
A Herald-Standard analysis of state Department of Corrections annual statistical reports from 2009 through 2018 revealed that Fayette has had more court commitments of women to state prisons than any other counties in Pennsylvania, 610, except Philadelphia (933) and Delaware counties (665).
Delaware County’s population is more than four times the size of Fayette’s. Philadelphia County has more than 10 times Fayette County’s number of residents.
Fayette County Sheriff James Custer, whose office transports inmates to state facilities once they are sentenced, and Fayette County Prison Warden Jeffrey Myers, who oversees inmates until their cases are resolved, said the high number of women committed to state facilities reflects the increased number of women going through the criminal justice system in the county.
Mark Bergstrom, executive director of the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing, said different factors like county jail capacity can shape county sentencing tendencies.
While the officials have taken steps in recent years to alleviate overcrowding in the county prison, the 131-year-old facility has been the subject of recent federal lawsuits from inmates claiming poor conditions make incarceration there inhumane. Last year, county commissioners started down the road of constructing a new facility, acquiring the former Army Reserve Center and recently approving a contract for the design and construction of a new county lockup.
According to DOC inmate population data, there were 84 inmates at SCI-Cambridge Springs and SCI-Muncy, the two state women’s prisons, committed from Fayette as of Dec. 20, just nine fewer than the total number of inmates at those two prisons from Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties combined.
Washington County had 124 court commitments of women to state prisons from 2009 through 2018, while Westmoreland County had 118, a fraction of Fayette County’s 610 commitments, despite having significantly larger populations. Greene County had 33 such commitments from 2009 through 2018.