Pike jail seals pact to hold ICE inmates


New guidelines free cells for detainees awaiting deportation

By Beth Brelje

Pocono Record Writer

November 04, 2011

A new law thinning the inmate population in Pennsylvania's county jails spurred the Pike County Correctional Facility to firm up its relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement through a new three-year contract.

The 372-bed facility in Blooming Grove Township is usually about half full with county inmates, and half with ICE detainees.

New sentencing guidelines that go into effect Nov. 24 will require that offenders with a maximum sentence of two years or more, (excluding drunken driving sentences) be sent to state prison.

Currently, inmates with maximum sentences of up to five years can be placed in county facilities, where some can hold on to their jobs and keep supporting their families through work release programs.

Inmates with a maximum sentence of two years or more are state offenders. The state prison board decides their parole, said Mark Bergstrom, executive director of the legislative agency Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing.

"Counties are paying to keep state offenders in jail, yet have no authority over their parole," Bergstrom said. "State prisons have more resources for people who have longer sentences."


Started in the 1990s

In 1996 Pike County officials agreed to a contract with the federal government to provide at least 50 beds for the U.S. Marshals Service. Pike is reimbursed with a daily rate per inmate.

The money defrayed the cost of operating the prison, but it wasn't enough.

"The Marshals Service could not provide enough bodies to fill beds," Pike County Correctional Facility Warden Craig Lowe said.

After about a year, county commissioners went to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now known as ICE) and struck a deal to house detainees who have served prison sentences and are awaiting deportation.

Instead of writing a contract directly with Pike County, ICE piggybacked off the federal agreement already in place through the Marshals Service, a common practice, Lowe said.

Anticipating fewer local inmates, commissioners recently pursued and got an Intergovernmental Service Agreement directly with ICE. The Marshals Service is still using the facility.

"For 2011 Pike County has been the only new IGSA that has entered into a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," Lowe said.

The three-year agreement goes into effect Dec. 1.

"I think that this solidifies their presence in our county," Commissioner Rich Caridi said.

Pike County will be paid $82.31 a day for each ICE inmate. That is an 81 cent increase over the current agreement. The facility agrees to have at least 210 beds available for ICE detainees.

Lowe estimates the agreement will bring in between $6 million and $6.5 million in 2012, depending on the number of detainees.

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