Opinion: Centre County Correctional Facility needs outdoor recreation
Incarcerated individuals in our county jail — Centre County Correctional Facility (CCCF) — never get outdoor recreation. Unless an inmate goes out on work release, they never get outside, period. They never feel sunshine. Because the small windows in the cell blocks are opaque, they do not even see outside. Imagine for a minute what that is like.
Lack of vitamin D, which the sun gives us, has serious mental and physical side effects. The body’s clock is off. Sleep patterns are disturbed. This is inhumane and unacceptable in our community where we embrace restorative justice, redemption and rehabilitation.
In the late 1970s, I advocated for outdoor recreation at the county’s prior jail behind the courthouse in Bellefonte. That prison board decided to meet the standards. They hired more staff, provided inmates access to the law library, family visitation and outdoor recreation. The outdoor recreation area wasn’t huge but it was, importantly, outdoors.
Four decades later, in 2018, I once again found myself in front of the county’s prison board advocating for outdoor recreation. That’s because when CCCF opened in 2005, the prison board allowed for the new jail to be constructed without outdoor recreation facilities. This is a marvel because outdoor recreation was and is enshrined in Pennsylvania law.
The minimum requirements for outdoor recreation in county jails set by Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections (DOC) state:
(1) Jails shall provide all prisoners at least 2 hours daily, physical exercise in the open, weather permitting. If the weather is inclement, each inmate shall have 2 hours physical exercise daily indoors.
(4) Inmates under disciplinary status or segregation shall receive 1 hour of outdoor activity 5 days a week. (Title 37 § 95.238)
State inspections of CCCF by the DOC have, to this point, given our jail a pass on these requirements — but why? CCCF’s recreation facilities consist of relatively small indoor areas with a garage-door like window high up on an outer wall. Sometimes that window is open.
The law reads that inmates must have “daily, physical exercise in the open” and, if the weather is inclement, “each inmate shall have 2 hours physical exercise daily indoors.” The opposite of “indoors” could be nothing other than “outside.” An open garage door high above hardly constitutes “in the open” (1) let alone “outdoor activity” (4).
The prison board ignored me in 2018. Sadly, four years later, it continues to ignore the need for outdoor recreation at CCCF, even as more citizens than just me are speaking out. Search online for Centre County’s YouTube channel to access prison board recordings from April, July, September and October of this year when local citizens expressed their concerns about this issue.
SCI Rockview and all state prisons and most county jails have outdoor recreation. The Rockview director of treatment often gave inmates with special treatment needs extra “yard out,” which meant that instead of the minimally-required two hours of outdoor recreation, they received four hours. He said, “The more time in the yard, the less problems in the block.”
According to the American Correctional Association, there is not to be punishment in our prisons and jails beyond the taking of freedom. CCCF is imposing cruel punishment. The county’s prison board has been silent about real outdoor recreation at CCCF.
The DOC says Centre County can build recreation yards if it wants. The DOC is not preventing outdoor rec. It is the prison board that is prohibiting outdoor recreation.
The cost to have outdoor recreation at CCCF is nothing compared to the damage imposed upon our returning citizens, their families and our community.