Special Report: A visit to Block J, Vermont inmates’ new home

CAMP HILL, Pa. — Dotted throughout the prison where some 269 Vermont inmates will arrive any day are posters reading “Hope is real, help is real.”

When the inmates — who are being moved from a prison in Michigan — arrive at the barbed wire gates of SCI Camp Hill in south-central Pennsylvania, they will have any number of adjustments to make.

“There’s a lot of nervousness for the inmates,” said Mike Touchette, Vermont’s director of correctional facilities. “Not knowing exactly what Pennsylvania looks like and how they operate creates anxiety and stress.”

The Vermonters, all men, are coming from a private prison where they were the only ones in a complex designed for 1,000. In December the operator of the Michigan facility, the GEO Group, declined to renew its contract to house Vermont prisoners.

The 269 inmates now move to Camp Hill, a prison holding thousands. And they won’t be the only new faces there. In January, Camp Hill announced it would take up to 1,000 inmates displaced by the closing of two other Pennsylvania prisons.

According to an April 30 report from the state, Camp Hill was running slightly over its operational bed capacity, though administrators say it is still well under its emergency capacity, which is based on the number of beds physically available.

Prison administrators — including Superintendent Laurel Harry and William Nicklow, director of population management — recently took a reporter from VTDigger on a two-hour tour of Camp Hill.

The 3,272-bed prison, which is overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, was originally built in 1941 as the Industrial School at White Hill, a prison for young offenders.

Today the 52-acre prison holds men of all ages and security risks, including some in a so-called supermax unit for dangerous offenders.

Parts of the prison are dark or cramped, but inmates on the grounds were kind and courteous during the tour, chatting with administrators and holding doors open.

The Vermont inmates are scheduled to arrive in Pennsylvania by the end of June. Administrators for both states, citing security risks, would not say whether the inmates would be flown to Pennsylvania or detail what type of transportation would be provided.

Once they arrive, these 269 inmates will be classified based on their security threat and outfitted with blue or brown prison outfits and free identification cards. (A prisoner who loses the card is charged $5 for a new one.) The inmates will be strip-searched and shower in a classification building near the administrative offices.

The inmates’ possessions from Michigan will be re-evaluated in Pennsylvania, where state rules differ. Prison administrators said inmates’ flat-screen televisions will be allowed in Camp Hill but that bulky older TVs are subject to an approval process.

Every new prisoner is given a piece of paper, an envelope and a stamp in order to write to family and give an update. Pennsylvania administrators said it would likely take a few weeks to set up email accounts for the Vermonters and asked for patience from family members.

Welcome to Block J

The majority of the Vermont inmates will be housed on Block J, a big brick building with slitted windows. The unit has outdoor space for lifting weights or playing basketball. There are flat-screen televisions in the big common area, with access to television and eight interchanging movies from Netflix, all rated PG-13 or under.

The Block J building is air-conditioned, and cells feature one toilet, bunk beds and a small window to the outdoors. SCI Camp Hill administrators said no more than two inmates are ever put in a cell together.

The showers, which are on the second floor, feature barriers separating each of them.

Although smoking cigarettes is prohibited in cells, Block J smelled like recently torched tobacco. Cigarettes are not banned; inmates are allowed to smoke but only in designated areas. Administrators said cells are frequently searched and any contraband, such as homemade knives, is disposed of and can bring punishment.

Administrators said it’s rare to find weapons. They acknowledged there are some gang elements in the institution, though they said the inmates are effectively segregated.

“We’ve talked to the prison about security threat groups, or gangs,” Touchette said. “Pennsylvania has a process to identify persons who are in a security threat group. Depending on how active they are, they manage the housing and maintenance of those individuals so that safety and security can be maintained.”

Angus Love, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, said federal prisons often have bigger gang problems than state facilities. He said skirmishes in Pennsylvania are based more on ethnic and religious differences.

“There are fights between blacks and whites,” Love said. “Whites are a distinct minority in the prisons, the opposite of open society, and some feel they need to arm themselves to protect themselves.”

The capacity of Block J is 252 inmates, and there are currently 269 Vermont inmates expected to arrive. Initially, at least, more than a dozen of the arrivals will be separated from their Vermont brethren and put in blocks with strangers. Pennsylvania administrators will make specific housing decisions, not Vermont.

“The majority of the inmates will be housed together in one unit, but there will be an overflow inevitably at most times,” said Nicklow, the director of population management.

Programs and discipline

The prison provides wellness classes, financial management courses and coordinators for veterans. There is an indoor basketball court, a baseball field and an expansive weight room.

The Rev. Larry Mills, the prison’s chaplain, offers frequent religious services for a comprehensive list of faiths.

The prison also regularly offers Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings to inmates.

Pennsylvania administrators said they are able to effectively mitigate drug use in prison with the help of a mailroom system that can detect drugs on paper. (For that reason, family members should send mail only on white paper, as other colors can complicate the detection of drugs.)

Inmates are also subject to random cell searches and drug tests.

If inmates are found with contraband or have engaged in misconduct, a wide range of punishments is possible, the most severe of which is up to a 23-hour stay in a restricted housing unit.

Inmates may appeal misconduct charges, and there is also a grievance board to hear inmate concerns. Inmates may seek legal help in the prison’s law library, and administrators said they hoped to soon transfer Vermont’s legal statutes and other relevant documents onto the library’s computer system to help inmates track their cases.

The prison offers medical services and a dentist. The copay for basic services hovers around $5. Inmates are able to coordinate off-site outpatient care for services that require more specialized skills.

Prison administrators said Aramark provides the food for the facility, and they boasted of a new heart-healthy menu where all the food is cooked in one of two on-site kitchens. Inmates help prepare food and may also find jobs doing groundskeeping or in the laundry room.

‘We know the hardships’

Family members may visit the prison any day except Tuesdays. Administrators warned that weekends can get crowded, and visits may be limited to two hours. On Thursdays, late visits are allowed. A detailed rundown of visiting hours is available on the state’s Department of Corrections website.

Camp Hill is nearly an eight-hour drive from Burlington. The three-hour flight from Burlington to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania — which is only a few miles from Camp Hill — can cost around $500.

Touchette said part of the reason Vermont partnered with Pennsylvania was “proximity to Vermont.”

“We know the hardships family members endure,” Touchette said. “The new prison shaves off about four hours of travel time compared with Michigan.”

Touchette said the GEO Group dropped its contract suddenly and that the state didn’t have enough time to issue a formal request for proposals for a new provider.

“We made inquiries to a number of other states, both private and public prisons,” Touchette said. “One of our goals was to keep all of our inmates in the same jurisdiction, as there will be more continuity in services.”

Both Pennsylvania and Vermont have the power to back out of the three-year contract with six months’ notice. Vermont will pay for a minimum of 250 prisoners at Camp Hill, and Pennsylvania is bound to accept a maximum of 400.

Vermont will pay $72 a day for each prisoner, a weekly cost of more than $135,000 at the current population number. The Pennsylvania cost is higher than at the GEO Group facility in Michigan, where the state paid $62 per inmate per day. These costs cover everything from food to medical needs and transportation.

Vermont’s Touchette said a seven-person division in the Department of Corrections will make monthly visits to Camp Hill.

“Their job will primarily be to make contact with inmates to discuss their return to Vermont or case planning activities,” Touchette said.

According to PennLive, some have voiced concerns around overcrowding at Camp Hill.

In 1989 the prison reached capacity and a riot broke out. According to reports, the unrest “resulted in roughly half of the facility being destroyed or heavily damaged by fire.”

The riot resulted in 123 injuries, including to staff members, inmates and first responders.

“Inmates overwhelmed a few guards in a block and a major force assembled to retake the facility,” said Love, of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. “The force gathered inmates in the yard and burned their belongings. There were helicopters overhead and state police on horses with guns surrounding the perimeter. It was a heavy duty scene. That’s the short history of Camp Hill.”

After the riot, the prison was completely redesigned and rebuilt and is much more secure, prison spokesperson Amy Worden said. Special emergency response teams, new protocols and policies were implemented and there have been no disturbances since then.

The prison’s current administrators and inmates weren’t there during that time.

Love said that, besides the 1989 riot, Camp Hill doesn’t stand out much from the other state prisons in Pennsylvania.

“I’ve been there many times, and I find it one of the more stringently run institutions in the state,” Love said.

During VTDigger’s recent tour with administrators, no current Camp Hill inmates were made available to the press. But on a cell wall in Block J, a past inmate left a scratched message: “F–k this.”

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