Citing Graterford, Montco Lawmaker Proposes To Give Inmate Wages To Victims

A bill was introduced in the Pennsylvania house by State Rep. Todd Stephens (R-Montgomery) which would divert a portion of inmate wages to help with the legal fees of their victims.

House Bill 1089 was passed in the House and now awaits action in the Senate.

Stephens said that prisoners are given too many ways to use their wages while in prison, citing a number of leisure items available for purchase at the commissary in Graterford State Prison.

“At Graterford they have cable television for sale,” Stephens said. “A TV is something the inmate can buy at the commissary for 150.”

“(There’s too much) that might be able to preoccupy someone spending life in prison for murder,” he said.

In an April memorandum to all members of the Pennsylvania House, Stephens cited 47 separate separate recommendations for reforms to the way convicts repay their victims:

This bill will establish a mandated minimum percentage for deductions from deposits made to inmate personal accounts in county and state correctional facilities. Current law authorizes, but does not require, prison officials to deduct money from inmate accounts to satisfy a prisoners’ court-ordered restitution.

The result of this, according to Stephens, is inmates spending that money on “poker chips, playing cards, and suntan lotion.”

“I could not believe when I went out on the great yard in Graterford,” Stephens said. “The volleyball court is labeled ‘the beach’ where guys hang out and get suntans.”

Stephens, a 1989 Hatboro-Horsham High School graduate, is based in North Wales.

Image courtesy State Rep. Todd Stephens.