Five PA counties charged more than $21 million for immigration detention

Five county jails in Pennsylvania have or recently had agreements with federal immigration enforcement agencies to hold people in their jails, sometimes for months, in exchange for significant fees, Spotlight PA found, according to Spotlight PA.

Clinton, Erie, Franklin, and Pike Counties collectively charged more than $21 million for detention in 2024 and 2025, invoices obtained by Spotlight PA show. A fifth county, Cambria, has a similar detention arrangement, according to federal records and a county official — but denied Spotlight PA’s September 2025 request seeking payment information because ICE did not start sending detainees to its jail until later in the month.

Local government officials in favor of the agreements told Spotlight PA that the revenue generated supports services such as the county jail or general fund expenses.

“You’re always going to have pushback one way or another, but we haven’t really experienced it to this point,” Cambria County Commissioner Scott Hunt told Spotlight PA in early March. “This is a relationship that has gone back many years.

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States fail to report deaths in jails and prisons as required by law

 The Justice Department's annual tally of deaths in state prisons and jails was short by nearly 1,000 last year, an investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found, reported Reason.

States are required under the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA) to submit data on deaths in prisons and jails to the Justice Department, but in a report released today, the committee says that the Justice Department has failed to effectively implement the law, undermining the accuracy of its data and congressional oversight of deaths in custody.

The committee and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that in the last year alone the department missed 990 prison and jail deaths that were reported on state websites, news articles, and other public databases. 

Those failures have "deprived Congress and the American public of information about who is dying in custody and why," the report says. "This information is critical to improve transparency in prisons and jails, identifying trends in custodial deaths that may warrant corrective action—such as failure to provide adequate medical care, mental health services, or safeguard prisoners from violence—and identifying specific facilities with outlying death rates. DOJ's failure to implement this law and to continue to voluntarily publish this information is a missed opportunity to prevent avoidable deaths."

Despite the Constitution's bans on cruel and unusual punishment and excessive force, incarcerated people in prison systems and jails across the U.S. are regularly subjected to medical neglect, brutality, and unsafe living conditions.

Federal judges in both Arizona and Illinois recently held those state prison systems in contempt for failing to address gruesome medical neglect within their walls. The Justice Department has in recent years found unconstitutional conditions in prisons in Florida and Alabama, and it is investigating similar allegations in Mississippi and Georgia. In New York City, the infamous Rikers Island jail complex is under threat of being put in receivership by a federal judge because of a string of preventable deaths and chronic corruption.

Congress passed the DCRA in 2000 and reauthorized it in 2013. The law requires states to report deaths in prisons and jails. It also authorized the attorney general to cut up to 10 percent of federal law enforcement grant funding to states that fail to comply.

But a series of changes over the past several administrations have degraded what was supposed to be a strong law, the report says. In 2019, the Justice Department moved responsibility for the DCRA from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). The latter office is responsible for federal grant-making, not tabulating data. The BJA then stopped publicly reporting the mortality data it collected, which the BJS had done annually for 16 years.

Since the switch between offices, the quality and accuracy of the data submitted to the Justice Department has plummeted. The subcommittee's investigation found that 70 percent of the records submitted to the BJA were missing at least one required field.

A WBUR investigation last year found 37 in-custody deaths that local sheriffs never reported to the Justice Department, and an analysis published earlier this year in The Appeal found that most states were not in compliance with the DCRA.

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PLW: Compassionate Release: A Broken Law That Needs Mending

Matthew T. Mangino
The Legal Intelligencer
May 5, 2022

A Pennsylvania law that allows sick inmates to be released from prison early is broken. Spotlight PA investigative reporter Danielle Ohl recently highlighted the failure of compassionate release in Pennsylvania. Spotlight PA is a collaboration of The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Harrisburg Patriot-News, Pittsburgh Tribune Review and WITF Public Media.

Although Ohl’s investigation was published in late March, a statistic she shared in a follow-up article on April 26, sums up the failure of Pennsylvania’s compassionate release statute—only 33 people have successfully petitioned to leave prison because of illness in the past 13 years. On average, a little more than two inmates released a year in a correctional system that has more than 5,500 prisoners over 55 years of age.

A “deferment of sentence” pursuant to 42 Pa. C.S. 9777, allows an inmate’s sentencing judge to grant release from prison upon showing that the inmate is seriously ill and facing certain death. Typically, a decision regarding the release of an inmate serving a state sentence resides exclusively with the Pennsylvania Parole Board. The trial court has no authority to order the release of a state prisoner, unless a state statute provides an exception.

There are different requirements for compassionate release to a hospital, long-term care nursing facility or release to hospice. Long-term care for treatment outside of a correctional facility is for inmates having less than one year to live. Release for hospice care is reserved for inmates facing imminent death.

A review of the law makes it clear why so few seriously ill inmates successfully navigate the morass of requirements to be released to die with dignity outside the prison walls. The process can be onerous for an inmate literally near death suffering from a debilitating disease.

In Commonwealth v. Folk, 40 A.3d 169 (Pa. Super. 2012) the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that an inmate must establish each of the seven factors listed under 42 Pa.C.S. Section 9777(a)(1)(i) through (a)(1)(vii) to be eligible for release:

The medical needs can be more appropriately addressed at an outside facility;

The outside facility agrees to provide necessary medical care;

The inmate is seriously ill and will die within one year;

There are no writs filed or detainers or court orders requiring the inmate’s presence;

The placement does not pose an undue risk of escape or danger to the community;

The facility will notify the department and the court of any material changes in health;

All stakeholders are provided notice.

Each of the above seven factors must be proven to the sentencing court by “clear and convincing proof.”

The statute also provides that release to a hospital or long-term care nursing facility requires electronic monitoring by the Department of Corrections. A seriously ill inmate will wear an ankle bracelet that will be continuously monitored by correction staff.

The statute also provides for release of an inmate for hospice care. The purpose of hospice care is to allow people nearing death to live out their final days with dignity, purpose and comfort. The basic criteria to receive a deferred sentence for hospice care requires an applicant be unable to walk, with a terminal illness that will result in death in the near future.

An inmate facing imminent death, seeking hospice care, must prove by clear and convincing proof, pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. 9777 (a) (2) (i) through (vi), the following:

The inmate is terminally ill, not ambulatory and likely to die in the near future;

The licensed hospice care provider can provide the inmate with more appropriate care;

Services will be provided by the licensed hospice care provider at the hospice care center.

Sections (iv), (v) and (vi) are consistent with the final three provision set forth above under Section 9777 (a) (1).

Through the “grace” of the Pennsylvania General Assembly those inmates receiving a deferred sentence for hospice care—who have proven that they are essentially confined to a bed, do not have to be electronically monitored by the Pennsylvania Parole Board.

As if the statutory requirements requiring clear and convincing medical proof are not stringent enough, the statute  requires a judge, in his or her discretion, to determine if sending an inmate to a hospital, long term nursing facility, or hospice would create an “undue risk of escape or a danger to the community.”

In Folk, the court changed the appellate standard of review from an error of law standard to an abuse of discretion standard, making it tougher to challenge a denial. As if a terminally ill inmate, facing imminent death had time for appellate review.

Why is it important that Pennsylvania take another look at compassionate release in an effort to expand its use? According to FAMM, a national nonpartisan advocacy organization that promotes fair and effective criminal justice policies, the proportion of prisoners 55 years old and older increased 400% between 2003 and 2013. By 2030 prisons will house more than 400,000 individuals who will be 55 and older, making up nearly one-third of the population.

Every state—with the exception of Iowa—has some form of compassionate release. Unfortunately, a number of states, like Pennsylvania, have made it virtually impossible for seriously ill inmates to get out of prison.

In neighboring Ohio, seriously ill inmates have seemingly two opportunities for the early release. Judicial release for terminally ill prisoners with less than 12 months to live and administrative release for prisoners facing imminent death—less than six months to live. However, according to FAMM, those facing imminent death cannot apply for administrative release until they have exhausted the judicial release process.

What is the likelihood that an inmate facing imminent death will survive long enough to exhaust a judicial request and manage the bureaucratic red tape involved in processing a request for administrative release? In reality, Ohio’s compassionate release process seems, not unlike Pennsylvania’s, a cruel hoax.

In Kansas to be eligible for terminal medical release, Kan. Stat. Ann. Section 22-3729 (a) (2) a prisoner’s death must be expected within 30 days. Is there anything compassionate about requiring a terminally ill patient, with presumably less than 30 days to live, to seek release from prison?

According to FAMM, Indiana will not consider terminally ill prisoners for a temporary leave due to terminal illness unless they are within seven and a half years of their release date. If an inmate has eight years remaining on her sentence she is not entitled to die with dignity.

As it exits, there is nothing compassionate about Pennsylvania’s, or many other states for that matter, so-called “compassionate release” law. A statute that is more accessible to seriously ill inmates would do two important things. One, provide dignity to a human being, albeit a flawed human being, the comfort and dignity to die with family and outside the prison walls, and two,  save taxpayer dollars that are used to treat and care for terminally ill prisoners left to die behind bars.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly and George in New Castle, Pennsylvania. He is the author of “The Executioner’s Toll.” You can follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino or contact him at mmangino@lgkg.com.

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Female inmate population has risen as male population declined

The number of women held in America’s jails has risen more than 20% over the past decade, to an average of more than 115,000 inmates a day, according to Reuters. And more and more are arriving in need of medical attention or with debilitating health conditions that strain the capacity of lockups typically designed for men. Thousands arrive pregnant each year. Most suffer from mental illness – at far higher rates than their male counterparts – and they’re more likely to experience drug and alcohol addiction.

As more women land in America’s local jails, more are dying there, too.

Reuters, analyzing data it obtained from more than 500 U.S. jails, documented 914 deaths of female inmates in those facilities from 2008 to 2019. In a three-year stretch from 2008 to 2010, 171 women died in the jails surveyed. From 2017 to 2019, the number rose to 287 dead, amid a spike in drug and alcohol deaths across U.S. society.

The casualties disproportionately affect Black women. Blacks comprise less than 14% of the U.S. population, but at least 24% of the 914 female victims identified by Reuters were Black. Information on race was unavailable for about 5% of female victims.

Seventy percent of the women who died over the 12-year period – at least 639 inmates – were awaiting trial, unconvicted and presumed innocent of the charges they faced. The death toll doesn’t include a category of collateral fatalities: their infant children.

The female inmate population has risen even as the male population declined, Reuters found, and many women struggle to afford bail, which can lead to longer jail stays.

“These women are showing up with needs, imminent needs, usually during a period of crisis and with trauma,” said Jessica Stroop, a correctional consultant with The Moss Group and former researcher specializing in female inmates at the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “It puts a massive strain on the jails.”

Jails “need to have gender-responsive programs and staff and training and facilities,” Stroop said. Instead, “women often get treated as a bolt-on” in jails “designed for men.”

Jailers have been slow to adapt their medical programs, staffing models and housing strategies to accommodate the demographic shift, say experts. The Milwaukee jail, which had few cells set aside for women in need, has been under court supervision since 2001 due to repeated findings of inadequate healthcare; the sheriff’s office did not reply to five interview requests and a lawyer representing the county declined comment.

The influx of women in jails “poses significant challenges, because there are limited resources,” said David Mahoney, the sheriff in Dane County, Wisconsin, who is also president of the National Sheriffs’ Association. The prevalence of addictions, mental illness and pregnancy “is a strain” requiring more personnel, housing and medications, he said.

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