Carbon officials discuss prison population issues

Carbon County officials are looking to see what, if anything, can be done to help with prison population management.

But there was some confusion on how that would be accomplished.

On Thursday, the county prison board met and discussed the new prison population management advisory committee, which Warden Timothy Fritz, said would be comprised of nine representatives from various agencies.

The purpose of the committee is to look at what is out there to best serve the county criminal justice system and better maintain the inmate population. As of Thursday, the number of inmates housed at the county correctional facility was 225, up from 197 last week, but lower than the 247 maximum capacity.

Commissioner William O’Gurek and Robert Crampsie, county controller, both questioned the makeup of the committee because it was their understanding that the members would be from the prison board, rather than outside agencies.

Sheriff Anthony Harvilla, prison board president, said that the purpose of opening it up to other agencies was to get more options that may be available.

Neither O’Gurek and Crampsie were thrilled by the decision.

Commissioner Wayne Nothstein said that maybe some of the agencies involved, including drug and alcohol and mental health agencies, may be able to provide insight on programs and services that are out there and could be utilized.

District Attorney Jean Engler said that something needs to be looked at and this committee may be able to help, or it may not.

“We obviously have a serious prison population problem, and since I have been the district attorney, we haven’t been able to solve it,” she said. “It has a direct impact on my office as we aren’t able to send people to our prison who would normally be there. They go to state and as a result, they don’t want to do that, then there are more negotiations, more trial. It has an impact on all of us.”

The board ended the discussion by moving forward with the committee in place already and will see how things work out.