Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration believes shutting down two state prisons could save more than $100 million per year in taxpayer funds, avert the need for costly upgrades and plug staffing gaps across the commonwealth’s corrections system. 

Over the past 15 years, a decline in the commonwealth’s incarcerated population has freed up space in prisons, and officials say paying for this unneeded capacity isn’t the best stewardship of public dollars. 

Their attention has landed on two particular facilities — Rockview state prison in Centre County and Quehanna Boot Camp in Clearfield County, which emerged as candidates for closure because of their age, condition and occupancy levels. They've also decided to shut down two community correction centers, or halfway houses, for inmates whose sentences are winding down.

Advocates say deactivating the prisons could benefit inmates by concentrating resources, making classes, programs and religious services more widely available. But the proposals have provoked an outcry from others, angering corrections officers and the rural communities that lean on the facilities for jobs and economic activity.

Now, these various factions are waiting to learn the outcome of the state's deliberations over the closures. After holding public hearings where dozens of locals urged the state to leave the prisons open, officials are expected to announce the fate of the facilities by the end of May. 

Officers to be transferred

Laurel Harry, the commonwealth’s secretary of corrections, pledged earlier this year to carry out the closure review “in a manner that is transparent and considerate of everyone impacted, including staff, the incarcerated population, and their loved ones, and the communities of Centre, Clearfield, and surrounding counties.”

The department says displaced corrections officers can remain employed and transfer to another prison at their existing salaries.

Leaders of the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association, however, say state officials haven’t lived up to their promise of openness. They contend the state is overstating the financial gains from shuttering the sites and worry that higher prison occupancy rates will trigger increased aggression. 

“Any time you crowd inmates in with each other, you’re always going to have violence,” said John Eckenrode, president of the Association, who believes the state should maintain its roughly 82% prison occupancy. “That’s unfortunate, but that’s part of prison life.”

Why are Pa. officials looking to close prisons?

The commonwealth’s incarcerated population has been on the decline over the past decade-plus, following a national trend, and facilities are full of empty beds, state officials note. The Rockview state prison was at about 84% occupancy in 2024, while the boot camp’s capacity has ranged between 54% and 75% in recent years. 

Keeping prisons across the corrections system fully staffed has also been difficult, and state officials report that in the past two years they’ve had to spend more than $70 million in overtime to cover empty shifts. 

In turn, asking people to work so many extra hours “likely contributes to the elevated turnover and washout rates,” state officials wrote in a recent report. 

Noah Barth, prison monitoring director at the Pennsylvania Prison Society, said staffing shortages and limited resources at the prisons lead to longer wait times for medical appointments and less access to classes and other programs. Many of the prisons also struggle to recruit enough faith leaders — particularly Muslim imams — to meet the inmates’ spiritual needs, he added. 

Consolidating the facilities, he said, could solve some of these problems by focusing resources and making them available to more inmates. 

“One instructor who’s capable of teaching a class with 10 guys probably can teach the same class with 12 or 14,” Barth said. “Whereas other facilities just don’t have the staff at all and are not having classes or have extensive wait lists.”

The state says even with the closures, the remaining prisons provide enough space to avoid crowding. The occupancy rate would still remain below 90% for incarcerated men and below 80% for women, officials have estimated.

State officials have acknowledged the potential disruption for corrections officers but have assured them they can work at the same salary at any Pennsylvania prison within a 67-mile radius. Nearly 660 people work at the Rockview prison, while the boot camp has about 230 staff, according to the state. 

The state corrections department reported there are dozens of vacant positions at prisons within driving distance of Rockview and Quehanna, and transferring staff from the closed sites could help fill these gaps.

But Eckenrode predicted many employees at the two facilities would quit rather than face lengthy commutes.

“These jobs are very taxing on you mentally, and sometimes physically,” he said. “You need time to decompress. You need time to be at home with your family.”

He also believes that shuttering these two prisons won’t solve the system’s long-term staffing challenges, which he says are driven by deeper problems. For instance, he said, changing prison management styles have stirred discontent among his members, who feel that too few people in leadership have experience as corrections officers. 

Unless the state resolves some of these complaints, Eckenrode said, staffing shortages will persist in the commonwealth’s corrections system.

Why did officials pick these two prisons for potential closure?

The Rockview prison is the second-oldest facility in the Pennsylvania corrections system, encompassing a stone-and-concrete building constructed in the early 1900s. Barth, whose nonprofit advocates on prison conditions, said this older structure lacks air conditioning and has an outdated and potentially hazardous layout, with long rows of cells stacked several tiers high. 

He said the roof leaks and fails to keep out birds, which scatter droppings over the building’s floors. 

“There are leaking pipes. There’s old concrete, there’s rust, there’s mold,” he said. “It is in very bad shape.”

The prison does feature more modern buildings, but the original stone structure houses several hundred of Rockview’s roughly 2,000 inmates, according to Barth.  

State corrections officials say over the next five years, the prison will need about $74 million of upgrades to repair the roof, boiler, showers, pipes and structure. 

However, these figures have drawn skepticism from opponents of the closure, who say some of this work is already completed or in progress and shouldn’t factor into the estimated cost savings. 

Sen. Cris Dush, R-Brookville, said he recently visited the Rockview prison and was surprised to see some of the roads were freshly paved, roof work was ongoing and the fencing was new. That’s not what he was expecting to see based on the corrections department’s portrayal of the site, he wrote in a letter to administration officials. 

“The closures of these institutions would have far-reaching economic impacts,” wrote Dush, whose Senate district includes the Rockview prison. “A closure based on incorrect or incomplete information would be a purposeless blow to the region.”

According to state officials, the boot camp also needs upgrades, which they estimate will cost more than $12 million over the next decade.

The facility doesn’t have a perimeter fence, and building one isn’t feasible because of the highway that runs through the property, according to the state. Officials note that a couple inmates have simply walked off the camp over the years. 

And many of the low-risk offenders who are eligible for the boot camp program are now opting to participate in drug treatment programs instead, Harry told lawmakers during a hearing. That’s one of the reasons, she said, Quehanna has struggled with low occupancy levels in recent years.