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AN APPLICATION to allow 130 convicted criminals to be housed at 207-199 S. Main St., Wilkes-Barre, is scheduled to go before the city’s zoning board this week.
No joke. The property’s owner, Jim Casey, needs a zoning change before Terry Davis of Keystone Correctional Services in Dauphin County will purchase his building. Cha-ching!
Davis wants to welcome 130 convicts to Wilkes-Barre while the city plays host to their many friends, acquaintances and business associates who come to visit. Most of our elected officials have been conspicuously silent regarding this most serious issue. However, one voice has been heard loud and clear, defending the rights of residents to live in neighborhoods free of facilities chock full of inmates and ex-cons.
Unfortunately, it took a courageous state representative from the Hazleton area to provide the necessary leadership and guidance.
State Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-Butler Township, knows of what she speaks. Toohil is a staunch opponent of placing such hangouts in populated areas. Newly elected to the House of Representatives, Toohil for months has been battling the MinSec Correctional facility in Hazleton. Unrelated to and ostensibly different from Keystone Correctional Services, MinSec has been the source of many complaints, and Toohil has publicly called for MinSec’s contract to be terminated.
“Convicted criminals from the facilities come out on the streets unsupervised and have been involved in robbing banks, thefts and homicides,” said Toohil. “This facility does not belong in a downtown setting. It does not belong in a place where there are restaurants, college kids and elementary schools.”
Sound familiar?
The correctional facility planned for South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre is adjacent to the Max Rosenn Federal Courthouse. Its 130 male inhabitants would be a stone’s throw from Holy Redeemer High School and St. Nicholas/St. Mary’s elementary school. Incredibly, it is only a few steps from Wilkes University Towers, one of several nearby dormitories affiliated with the Wilkes campus.
Certain homeowners are frightened and outraged.
The Times Leader reported that Davis has a contract with the state Department of Corrections “to take people released from the system, and surrounding counties also looking for facilities to place their inmates.”
Ladies and gentlemen, they will be deposited on South Main Street. Despite proponents’ claims that nonviolent offenders will inhabit the facility, my experience tells me that many convicts will be sent here not for the most serious crimes they commit, but rather for the lesser offenses to which they plead and are convicted.
As the state House Judiciary Committee often has heard, robbery becomes theft, aggravated assault becomes simple assault, dealing drugs becomes mere possession, etc. As a former member of that committee, I visited and studied most of Pennsylvania’s penitentiaries. They are not nice places. And they are filled to capacity with very serious individuals.
Understand, about half of the inmates (65) at a lockup such as the one planned for South Main Street will be released in less than six months. Many will decide to settle nearby (along with their friends, acquaintances and business associates) while a new 65 are sent to take their places. In a few months, the other 65 will get out. Many of them will remain in the area as their bunks are immediately filled. It is nonstop. Cha-ching. There is an endless supply. Cha-ching.
Do not bring it here.
Toohil represents Hazleton and all of the 116th Legislative District. She urges Wilkes-Barre to be careful before allowing the sale to go through. Her admonition is like a lighthouse beacon, warning us of the large and jagged rocks ahead.
Wilkes-Barre ignores this warning at its peril.