Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania sends too many people to prison for far longer than necessary. Sentencing laws that severely limit pathways to relief from excessive and unending punishment make the problem even worse. As a result, Pennsylvania has thousands of aging and sick people whose continued incarceration serves absolutely no purpose.

FAMM’s Second Chances Agenda in Pennsylvania includes ending life without parole, passing medical and geriatric release mechanisms, and broadly expanding clemency and compassionate release.

Tell your lawmakers to pass Second Chance laws in Pennsylvania now!

Read more about FAMM’s Second Chances Agenda in Pennsylvania.

• End Life Without Parole
• Expand Medical Release and Create Geriatric Release
• Expand Clemency

Sign FAMM’s Pa. Second Chances Petition

Tweet at your lawmakers and tell them you support second chances in Pennsylvania

Read FAMM’s report: “Time for Justice: The Urgent Need for Second Chances in Pennsylvania’s Sentencing System”

• Read the Executive Summary here

FAMM supports efforts to establish independent oversight of our state and federal prison systems. Independent oversight includes regular inspections of prisons and investigations of serious problems in them by people that are not employees of the prison system. We believe that all correctional facilities should be safe and humane, and individuals who are incarcerated should remain close to their homes in order to maintain important family bonds. FAMM supports policies that provide individuals with rehabilitative programs and meaningful work and education opportunities, as well as substance abuse and mental health treatment.

Pennsylvania is home to the oldest oversight organization in the United States: the Pennsylvania Prison Society. The cornerstone of the Prison Society’s work is its network of volunteer Official Visitors who have a nationally unique statutory right to visit incarcerated people. FAMM acknowledges the powerful work of the Prison Society, and unites with them in seeking additional independent oversight and transparency. There is significantly more work to be done.

Read more about FAMM’s work on oversight.

Tell your lawmakers to support independent prison oversight in Pennsylvania!

Read FAMM’s first-ever national poll on independent prison oversight showing 82% of Americans support it!

More than 20 percent of Pennsylvania’s prison population is over the age of 50, and many of these people have chronic health conditions. Maintaining such an enormous population of aging and ill people in our prisons is expensive, unnecessary, and unjust. Pennsylvania’s current law allowing for release of incarcerated people with terminal medical conditions is extremely narrow, procedurally cumbersome, and hardly used. Pennsylvania does not have a geriatric release mechanism. Pennsylvania should create mechanisms to release people in prison based on age and, separately, medical necessity.

Read FAMM’s position on medical and geriatric release in Pennsylvania

Read FAMM’s Memo on the current state of medical release in Pennsylvania

Read FAMM’s Compassionate Release Report Card for Pennsylvania

Read FAMM’s poll showing that 70% of Americans, across political lines, support compassionate release programs

Tell your lawmakers to pass second chance laws in Pennsylvania now!

Read Senator Street’s co-sponsorship memo for Medical and Geriatric Parole in Pennsylvania (formerly SB 835)

Read the full text of SB 136 (Medical Parole)

Read Rep. Kinsey’s co-sponsorship memo for medical parole in Pennsylvnia

Read the full text of HB 587 (Medical Parole)

Medical Co-Pay

Write to your lawmakers to permanently end the $5 medical copay in Pennsylvania state prisons

Read FAMM’s letter to PA officials asking to permanently end the $5 copay in prison

In Pennsylvania, clemency is the only hope of relief for people serving very long and life without parole sentences. Commutations are a necessary mechanism to release people, address injustice, and support second chances, and FAMM believes their use should be substantially expanded.

Read FAMM’s position on expanding clemency in Pennsylvania

FAMM Explains: Commutation in Pennsylvania

Watch FAMM’s Clemency 101 Webinar with former Board of Pardons Secretary Celeste Trusty (March 2022)

Watch FAMM’s Panel The Future of Clemency in Pennsylvania with Lt. Governor Austin Davis and Board of Pardons Secretary Shelley Watson (March 2023) (Transcript Available Here)

Read FAMM’s letter to PA officials asking for improvements to clemency process

Read FAMM’s letter to PA officials asking them to give reasons for clemency denials

Urge the Governor and the Pa. Board of Pardons to expand clemency

Changing Board of Pardons Unanimous Vote Requirement

Under current law, the governor may not grant clemency to a person serving a sentence of life or death unless the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons first recommends the person for clemency by a unanimous vote of 5-0. Sen. Bartolotta and Sen. Haywood introduced a bill that, if passed, would allow the governor to grant clemency whenever the Board of Pardons recommends a person for clemency by a vote of 4-1. Rep. McClinton and Rep. Kinsey introduced a bill that, if passed, would reduce the vote to 3-2. This will enable more people to be considered for clemency by the governor. FAMM supports these bills.

To learn more about the clemency process in Pennsylvania, visit the Board of Pardons website.

Read Sen. Bartolotta and Sen. Haywood’s cosponsorship memorandum to change Board of Pardons vote to 4-1

Read FAMM’s letter asking for a 3-2 vote amendment

Read Rep. Brown’s cosponsorship memorandum to change Board of Pardons vote to 3-2

Pennsylvania has more than 5,300 people serving life without parole sentences, the mandatory sentence for a first- or second-degree murder conviction in the commonwealth.  FAMM supports efforts to repeal mandatory life sentences, allow opportunities for parole for people with these convictions, and make these reforms retroactive. All of us change and mature, and our laws should reflect that.

Read FAMM’s position on ending life without parole in Pennsylvania

Read Senator Street’s cosponsor memo on life without parole (formerly SB 135)

Tell your lawmakers to pass second chance laws in Pennsylvania now!

FAMM opposes all mandatory minimum sentences, and supports legislative efforts to repeal them in Pennsylvania.  FAMM will continue to fight to keep the mandatory minimum sentences that have been previously repealed off the books in Pennsylvania.

Tell your lawmakers to oppose the return of mandatory minimums in Pennsylvania

Since 1980, due in part to carceral drug policy, the number of women incarcerated in the United States has risen by 700%.  Many incarcerated women are caretakers of children, and many are also survivors of physical or sexual trauma.  Women of color are also overrepresented among the population of women incarcerated in the country.  FAMM supports efforts to promote dignity for incarcerated women in Pennsylvania.

2022:

Medical/Elderly Parole:

SB 835

Read SB 835 here and companion bill HB 2347 here

Read a summary of SB 835 and HB 2347 here

Tell your lawmakers to support SB 835

Read State Sen. Boscola’s co-sponsorship memo for Medical Parole in Pennsylvania

Read State Sen. Baker’s co-sponsorship memo for Medical Parole in Pennsylvania

HB 2634 (Medical Release in Pennsylvania)

Read State Rep. Kail’s co-sponsorship memo for for HB 2634, Medical Release in Pennsylvania

Read a summary of HB 2634

Mandatory Minimums:

We defeated the return of mandatory minimums and successfully prevented the passage of the bills we opposed.

Mandatory Minimum Gun Sentences

Rep. Amen Brown (D-190) introduced a bill to create mandatory minimum sentences for people who possess guns and have a felony record. FAMM opposes this bill.

Read HB 1587 here

Read a summary of the bill here

Read an article about pushback to the bill here

Rep. Stephens (R-151) has introduced a bill that would make the guidelines sentence presumptive when guns are involved in a case, and require the court to explain departures from that guideline sentence. FAMM opposes this bill.

Read HB 1590 here

Read a summary of the bill here

Read FAMM’s Letter in opposition to HB 1587 and HB 1590 here

Sen. Regan (R-31 introduced a bill that would create a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for possessing a gun while selling drugs. FAMM opposes this bill.

Read SB 687 here

Dignity for Incarcerated Women

SB 138 (Sen. Bartolotta) – would require data collection and reporting on the shackling of pregnant incarcerated women; require female corrections staff to accompany pregnant incarcerated women for medical visits; limit shackling and placement of pregnant incarcerated women in solitary confinement; limit invasive cavity inspections of pregnant incarcerated women; require both county and state prisons to provide pregnant incarcerated women with prenatal care and instruction; require the provision of free menstrual products to incarcerated women.

HB 700 (Rep. Fitzgerald) – would require the provision of free menstrual products to incarcerated women.

HB 1283 (Rep. Bullock) – would require the Department of Corrections to provide each incarcerated parent with one free phone call or e-mail to their children each month.

HB 1419 (Rep. Jones) – would prohibit shackling and solitary confinement of pregnant women, provide for trauma informed care training of corrections officers interacting with pregnant and post-partum women, eliminate cost for feminine hygiene products, and more.

2021:

Reprieve

In Pennsylvania, the Governor has the Constitutional authority to grant reprieves, or a suspension of sentence, to incarcerated people.  FAMM supports efforts to encourage the governor to broadly utilize this release mechanism to quickly depopulate Pennsylvania’s carceral facilities when necessary.

See FAMM’s letters to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf urging him to use his reprieve power in response to COVID-19:

• February 1, 2021
• May 7, 2020
• March 31, 2020

SB 549 – Expedited Medical and Elderly Release for COVID-19

Sen. Williams has introduced a bill that would create a 90-day “Temporary Disaster Emergency Inmate Transfer Program” that would allow the Department of Corrections to transfer prisoners vulnerable to serious cases of COVID-19 to a community corrections center or facility or home confinement. FAMM supports this bill.

Read the text of SB 549

2018:

In 2018, FAMM successfully opposed all bills to reinstate mandatory minimum sentences in Pennsylvania – all of these bills were defeated in the legislature. FAMM also supported SB 942, a bill to create parole eligibility for people serving life without parole. The bill did not get a vote in the legislature. FAMM began educating Pennsylvania lawmakers about the need to increase the use of early release for elderly and ill prisoners, and we launched our #MyMailMatters campaign to oppose new policies that require that prisoners receive only black and white photocopies of their mail. Most importantly, FAMM hired two new organizers, Celeste Trusty of Philadelphia and Evans Moore of Pittsburgh, to begin training Pennsylvanians to support FAMM’s advocacy efforts.

2017:

The PA legislature hopes to reinstate mandatory sentences. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws have not made Pennsylvanians safer. They have not reduced or deterred crime. Indeed, after performing a comprehensive analysis of state mandatory minimum laws, the independent Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing concluded in 2009, “Neither length of sentence, nor the imposition of the mandatory sentence per se, was a predictor of recidivism.” The Commission also stated that offenders are not deterred by mandatory sentences because they do not know which crimes carry them.

While lengthy mandatory sentences have not enhanced public safety, they have helped to drive Pennsylvania’s prison population from 8,000 in 1980 to more than 50,000 in 2013. The state now spends more than $2 billion annually on corrections.

FAMM seeks to prevent reenactment of costly, counterproductive mandatory minimums. Instead, we support alternatives that are tough on crime without being tough on families and taxpayers.

2015:

On June 15, 2015, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania issued an opinion that found unconstitutional the state’s Drug Free School Zones Act, which set mandatory minimum sentences for selling drugs near schools. The court’s reasoning applies to nearly all of the state’s drug- and gun-related mandatory minimum sentencing laws and therefore invalidates those mandatory sentencing laws, too.

• Read FAMM’s Testimony to the House Democratic Policy Committee
• Factsheet: Access to Mail in Pennsylvania Prisons: Good for Families and Public Safety
• Factsheet: How Pennsylvania is Doing on Crime, Prisons, and Recidivism Since Repealing Mandatory Minimums
• Factsheet: Pennsylvania School Zone Laws
• Factsheet: State and County-Level Impact of Pennsylvania School Zone Laws
• The Use and Impact of Mandatory Minimum Sentences: Executive Summary
• A Multi-Method Study of Mandatory Minimum Sentences in Pennsylvania
• Commonwealth Foundation: Safer Communities, Smarter Spending (Sept. 2018)
• Pennsylvania Court System
• Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole
• Pennsylvania Board of Pardons
• 8.4.2020 Letter to the Board of Pardons
• Read FAMM’s Testimony to the PA Commission on Sentencing (March 9, 2022)
• Read FAMM’s June 2022 Testimony to the PA Commission on Sentencing (June 1, 2022)

Join our Facebook group, FAMMilies in Pennsylvania.

Encourage your state lawmakers to support mandatory minimum sentencing reform. Be sure to connect with FAMM and other sentencing reformers on Facebook, Twitter, and by signing up for our email list.

Visit our Justice Action Now Center to learn more about advocacy across the nation.

Share your story. Your personal stories are what we use to get lawmakers to listen, and to educate the general public.

Read about how to engage in legislative advocacy from prison: English | Spanish

You can also contact our Pennsylvania State Policy Director, Maria Goellner, at mgoellner@famm.org.

Sentencing/Criminal Justice Reform Groups in Pennsylvania:

• American Civil Liberties Union
• The Pennsylvania Prison Society
• HHS Responsible Fatherhood Initiative
• Justice and Mercy
• National H.I.R.E. Network
• Prison Fellowship International
• Commonwealth Foundation
• Americans for Prosperity – Pennsylvania
• The Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration
• Straight Ahead
• Amistad Law Project
• Let’s Get Free
• Abolitionist Law Center