- [Announcer] From your public media studios, WVIA presents "Keystone Edition," a news and public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition."

And now, moderator Julie Sidoni.

(lively music) - The definition of a prison, generally speaking, is a facility run by a state or federal agency that holds individuals convicted of crimes.

What happens within a prison might be a little less typical.

That can vary by jurisdiction, by security level, even by geography.

There is a prison in Northumberland County, SCI, or State Correctional Institution, Coal Township, that does things just a little differently.

There are programs there, philanthropic programs, designed specifically to help inmates build skills that benefit not only themselves, but also the wider community.

Recently, WVIA News reporter and deputy editor Roger DuPuis got a chance to personally see some of what's happening there, so we would like to begin this program tonight with Roger.

Welcome back to "Keystone Edition."

- Good evening, Julie.

How are you?

- I'm doing very well.

How are you?

- Great.

I'm well, thanks.

- I really liked when you came back into the newsroom, and I could tell you were interested and kind of excited about what you had seen there.

Could you give us and the viewers a bit of a behind-the-scenes look of what you saw at SCI Coal Township?

- Sure, I think what is interesting to me is that the average viewer who is watching this program, who's sitting out in the audience, has probably never been inside a prison.

- [Julie] Right.

- And filmmaker Alexander Monelli and I sat around a table with about eight inmates, people who were in there for very serious crimes, and this was all with the blessing of the superintendent, Tom McGinley, who's gonna be with us tonight.

And we wanted to talk with them about charitable programs at the prison.

There are two groups called the LifeLine Association and TriumpH, and the inmates essentially raise money through selling items to their fellow inmates, shoes, Tastykakes, that sort of thing.

And then the money that they earn is used to benefit community organizations.

Now, quick disclosure, WVIA in the past has been a recipient of donations from them.

- Yes.

- That's not why we're doing the story.

But this is entirely inmate-run.

The marketing, the fundraising, the communication organization organizing with, you know, the product providers and with the community organizations who benefit.

- Can you walk me through the differences?

One is called TriumpH, one is called LifeLine, the LifeLine Association, and you're gonna be hearing that a lot in this program, so could you help us define what those programs are?

- I think there's some similarities.

I think Superintendent McGinley will be able to explain that a little better than I can, but TriumpH has been around a little longer.

I think it goes back to about 1995.

LifeLine circa 2012, 2013, somewhere in there.

They have the same basic purpose, and you know, think of them as two different teams, if you will.

- What about your reporting there sparked the idea for this show?

Not every report that you do you think, "We could really get a good conversation about this."

What about this story led you into this?

- A few things quickly.

So, first, as I alluded to, we, WVIA, received a donation from the LifeLine Association.

So, my editor, Faith Golay, and I were invited to accept the donation.

- Mm-hmm.

- And we went to a banquet that was held with members of the LifeLine Association, members of some of the community groups that also received donations.

And we sat at lunch with these guys in a gym for over an hour, maybe two hours, I forget.

And we got to talk to them and hear their stories, understand what they were doing, see them in person.

WVIA has written about the program before.

We're gonna write about it again.

And when I realized by talking with Superintendent McGinley that we would be able to come back and meet with the inmates around the table to talk to them about what they were doing, learn more about the program, see them in the environment.

That, to me, was a unique opportunity that most journalists don't have an opportunity to do.

And folks in the community are never going to see these guys.

They're never gonna go walk the halls of a prison as we did.

- Is that unusual for reporters to be allowed into a facility like this?

- It is indeed, and there's a caveat I just wanna explain to folks when you see the video tonight there.

So, we had to abide by certain state correctional institution rules.

- Of course.

- We couldn't show faces.

We can't use last names.

Can't talk about why these guys are in there, what they did.

But we were certainly able to talk about their lives and a little bit about their experiences and why they participate in this program.

There are some very defined rules which Superintendent McGinley will explain.

- Again, we're gonna meet him and District Attorney for Pike County, Ray Tonkin, in just a moment.

- Ray Tonkin.

Yes.

- But I have heard you say SCI Coal Township, it's just different.

- It is just different.

What I've found in my reporting, and again, I think the superintendent can speak to this, is the other state prisons around Pennsylvania are not doing anything quite like this.

They're interested.

I think they've shown, you know, a willingness to learn more about it, but as far as I know right now, there is no other inmate-run charitable program in the SCI system like what we're seeing at Coal Township.

- And quickly, I would love if you could walk us through a bit the future of sentencing when it comes to the second-degree murder.

I know that there is some talk about that court cases going on right now.

Could you explain that for the viewers?

- Yeah, so for those who don't know, and we've reported on this as well, earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences for people convicted of second-degree murder were unconstitutional.

My understanding is Pennsylvania was one of only two states, us and Louisiana, who still had that on the books.

And the State Supreme Court said it's unconstitutional.

They can't do it.

Gave the state legislature a deadline by, I think, the end of the summer to come up with a legislative fix.

They didn't.

And so now, we're sort of hanging in the balance, and I think DA Tonkin in particular can speak to what may happen next and why it's relevant.

But some of the gentlemen we spoke with at SCI Coal Township, some of the guys who were there, inmates who have been convicted of crimes, fall under this category.

- It's applicable to them.

- And it is applicable to them and it's on their minds as well.

And so, I've written about it from the perspective of DAs, of victims' rights advocates, of people who've been victims of crimes, but it was a unique perspective to hear it from these people directly.

- All right, let's get our first look inside SCI Coal Township now.

It's a quick introduction to Superintendent Tom McGinley.

(screen whooshes) (pensive piano music) - I believe Nelson Mandela said, "Society is indicative of your prisons.

Just take a walk in, and you'll see what your society is like."

I want my society to be a a forgiving society, a society that's interested in redeeming people.

So, 1997, I started my career at SCI Coal Township.

Quickly realized I had an opportunity to move on to SCI Muncy.

And the first time I'm walking into Muncy, I seen an inmate catching a child coming down a sliding board in their visiting area.

I never thought I would see anything like that in a correctional facility.

Kind of opened up my eyes a little bit and decided that, you know, I needed to expand my thought process related to corrections, and I'm glad I did.

Came back in 2016 as a superintendent, and it was the best decision I ever made.

I had my first meeting with my administration.

I actually relayed to them that going forward, I wanted every inmate in this facility treated as if it was my own son incarcerated here.

And I quickly turned it on them and said, "And you should be doing the same as if it was your son incarcerated here."

We needed to get to a point at SCI Coal Township where individuals felt that they had value.

Our vision was to have each individual in this facility have a purpose to start the day.

We wanna make better citizens.

We've never lost the standard of rules and structure that we have here for the inmates, but we've certainly changed the way we go about that standard.

(gentle piano music) A lot of these gentlemen come from backgrounds where they don't have that structure, not even remotely close.

They really did not have a really good starting point.

I think what we do here is unique in the sense of, you know, from the artwork within the facility to the organizations, the horticulture program we have, and the amount of flowers we have in the facility.

We changed the scope of what a facility should look like, right?

The horticulture program, I actually have individuals that are assigned to the horticulture, and you talk about pride.

These individuals belong to these organizations.

They take pride in the horticulture programs.

Our intent from the beginning was not only to beautify the grounds, but make people feel good about what they see.

You know, our motto is we're spreading smiles for miles.

There isn't anybody who doesn't see a flower or doesn't smile.

They have to have a set standard of behavior, so they're all doing things the right way within the institution in order to belong to these organizations.

So, it's not just anyone can belong to the organization.

You have to earn that opportunity.

And once they earn that opportunity, then they just wanna run with it.

I think if people prejudge individuals, you know, there's a quote from Ted Lasso, "Be curious, not judgmental."

I think we all need to follow that at times.

Everyone has a story, and that story sometimes isn't told until they're incarcerated and working on to redeem themselves and make themselves better people.

(gentle piano music fading) - And we are now happy to welcome Superintendent McGinley to the panel, as well as Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin.

Thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- I'll go to you, sir, because you were listening to us talk about your facility, but I'll give you some of the same questions.

I'd love to know, first of all, why you think this is such an important thing to have in your prison?

- Well, I think how we see people is how we treat people.

What is basically important to me within our facility is the humanization components related to incarceration.

We have throughout our state facilities the opportunity to improve upon the lives of those incarcerated.

How we get to that point, inviting others into that specific role, I believe, is how we get to a better society in general.

- Can you define the programs a little more so people know what we're talking about, the LifeLine Association or TriumpH, a little bit about those programs in particular?

- Sure, inmate organizations, they are throughout the state, but none that have the capability of what we do at SCI Coal Township because of the men we have incarcerated at SCI Coal Township.

TriumpH, in and of itself, was established in 1995.

That was the first inmate organization that they had.

It has grown in leaps and bounds.

We have over 600 members within TriumpH right now.

And in order to be part of that organization, just like LifeLine, you need to have a standard of behavior, and that standard of behavior has to be positive, and you have to be doing positive things throughout the facility on a daily basis.

TriumpH, in and of itself, invites members in based upon that standard of behavior and what they're going to do.

There's no set sentencing guidelines on that.

However, LifeLine, when I returned to SCI Coal Township from SCI Muncy in 2016, I made it a point to formulate a long-term lifers organization, and that's what LifeLine is.

They had the opportunity then to reach out, and I think what makes Coal Township unique from all these other facilities is we built a bridge to the community.

That's not often done.

And I realized at that point that we needed to bring the community into our facility as our community need to go out to theirs in order to just enhance their roles within the community.

- 600 people involved in the LifeLine program or TriumpH?

- In TriumpH- - In TriumpH.

- And roughly 300 in our LifeLine program right now.

- How many in the prison altogether?

- Right now, I have 2,200 inmates.

- Okay, so that's a fair amount involved in the programs.

- Correct.

- But I heard you say there is some eligibility or a good behavior- - Sure.

- Plays a role in this.

- Yes, in both cases, an inmate has to have a minimum sentence as far as LifeLine of 10 years or more in order to qualify for that organization.

As far as TriumpH is concerned, and in both organizations, you have to have positive behavior and a structured role within the facility in order to belong to them.

- Who are programs like this really for?

Are they for the inmates?

Are they for the guards so that their job might be a little bit easier if the inmates are happier?

Is it for the community?

Why was it truly created?

- Well, in essence, it's for everyone, but the inmates themselves, corrections itself, I think needs to be grounded in empathy and dignity of those incarcerated.

They, within the facility, have a pride associated with those organizations, and that pride comes with the philanthropic endeavors that they reach out to these community members.

Now, when we first started in 2016, they didn't have that bridge to the community, but that was one thing that we wanted to really focus on.

And when we started reaching out to communities saying, "Hey, these men want to help you.

They wanna help your organizations.

They wanna provide monetary donations to individuals who really need it and organizations who really need it."

We started getting responses.

We had to reach out initially.

Now, individuals are reaching out to us.

They realize what these men are doing.

One of the bridges that we created was with Bucknell University.

That was a critical bridge, and Carl Milofsky was the professor at Bucknell who reached out to an inmate who had contacted him through correspondence, asking if he would bring the Inside-Out program in SCI Coal Township.

I was familiar with the Inside-Out program, and that's something I wanted to bring with me from SCI Muncy, 'cause I've seen the benefits associated with it.

And that brought the college students from Bucknell into the facility to have the inside students and basically in a class with those outside students, and they learned from each other.

They learned from the inside students, their life choices, how they got into the predicaments they're in, but they also learned there are very intelligent people inside that are incarcerated, you know, so that also helped grow our processes inside the facility.

- I'm very aware, DA Tonkin, I'll give this one to you, that a group we're not hearing from right now are the victims of crimes.

And as a district attorney, that's definitely part of your job, victims' rights and restitution and making sure the victims are also heard.

What would you say to someone who might say to you, "That doesn't sound like prison to me"?

- What I would say is that for the vast majority of prisoners, they will probably be released at some point in their life.

And just hearing about these programs, it really seems to me to be developing those individuals to return to society in a positive manner because it's giving them some purpose.

It's recognizing that they can have a purpose in their life for service to someone else, while also understanding that the reason that they are there is because they have victimized and hurt, sometimes severely, another individual.

So, it's really building those individuals who are likely to be released in society.

- I'd like to ask all of you about recidivism.

- Yes.

- Does this help recidivism?

What in your reporting has led you to believe one way or the other there?

- Right.

Well, if I could for one second, one other thing I'd like to say is that there's some of the people in the program who will never get out.

- Correct.

- Right, Superintendent?

And so if we commit to them- - Correct.

- Just briefly, why should they participate?

What do they benefit from?

- Well, it's just the feeling of philanthropy, helping others.

Something that a lot of inmates have done generally is take over the years instead of give.

Once they realize that giving back to society and helping the individuals they have helped, some of the organizations that they've donated to, from hospitals like Geisinger and the children's hospital to St.

Jude's, to St.

Joe's, they are one of these maybe 20 sponsors that's on the Go Joe T-shirt because of the amount of money that they donate for handicap vans, to food pantries, to school districts, to a Kaupas Camp where in Mount Carmel School District, you have a situation where individuals who generally wouldn't be coming from homes that wouldn't have the opportunity to see a college campus, they pay for that opportunity for Bucknell to unite with Mount Carmel and give those kids the opportunity to experience that in the summer.

As far as recidivism is concerned, the gentleman that, you know, we're speaking of that may never get out of prison, there's potentially the opportunity through commutation and maybe re-sentencing as the district attorney may discuss here on second degree.

But, you know, we talk a lot about crime in and of itself, but people age out of crime.

They don't age into it.

So, a lot of these gentlemen have been serving 30, 40, 50 years.

One of the things I never wanna lost sight of, and these gentlemen don't lose sight of, is the impact on the victims and the individuals associated with their crime because there's no such thing as a victimless crime.

With that said, they also realize that victims of their crime are also members of their own family to have to now deal with their situation, the incarceration and kids left behind and things of that nature.

So, there's a lot that goes into what we do in the prison to try and make them aware of their actions, to include impact of crime classes.

We have victims of crime that come in and actually speak to these gentlemen.

We have these gentlemen get up and do what they do to atone for what they've done.

So, they lead a good life within the confines of state correctional facility, and they hope that, obviously, that'll be a fruitful one if society should give them a second chance.

- And Julie, to answer your question, I know you were asking me.

What I learned from the gentleman around the table was that they are developing practical skills, so they're talking to me about putting out their own newsletter, describing what the activities of, you know, the group are.

There's marketing that goes into it.

There's financial planning and budgeting that goes into it.

And as I said, so these are not necessarily common programs around the state correctional system, so I don't know that we can say that there is or is not a specific recidivism rate associated with this program, but what I do know from being a reporter is that a lot of the people I've seen who have re-offended were sitting in prison stewing on their crimes.

You know, that's the sense you get that they maybe didn't have, you know, a practical obligation, anything to keep them, you know, sort of occupied and focused while they were inside.

And they come out angry and they come out perhaps without the skills they never developed to begin with.

- Correct.

- You know, I know you talk about, Superintendent McGinley, these people not having great starts in life.

- Yes.

- And it sounds to me like this program is helping some of them develop those skills that they maybe never had.

- Let's get into the second-degree murder sentencing issue.

Well, actually, I'll also give you the chance to respond to the recidivism.

I saw you nod.

Is that something that you think... Is there a link in your opinion that these types of programs within prisons would be able to help a recidivism rate?

- Well, the one thing to focus on for recidivism first is what's the definition that people would use for recidivism?

- That's a good point.

- Right?

Because it could be re-offending, meaning committing a new crime with only in a period of time.

Some people might define recidivism as a parole violation if they've been released or on their parole, but anything that can give these individuals skills and work on their mental ability to learn that they can still serve others and it is not all about themselves, which probably many times that's what brought them into prison themselves because they were only thinking about themselves and not the impact of others.

But in my view, programs like this would be able to lower a recidivism rate because it's really teaching them that they can have a purpose in life for others and to help others and not only think about themselves, as well as the practical skills in terms of budgeting, handling money, and probably a lot of times, really controlling their emotions.

- Mm.

That's an interesting one.

I was interested to hear the different perspectives of that, whether you think... I understand that this is improving life inside, but you talk about Inside-Out, that program, Inside-Out.

- Correct.

- And so that seems to be something that you are focusing on right now for those who will someday rejoin society.

- [Thomas] Correct.

- I also wanna know, though, has a group ever said no?

Have they said, "No, we don't want your money.

We don't want the help"?

- No, I think the groups realize that the individuals, we've never had anyone turn us down.

In fact, they reach out to us.

I had a grandmother recently who reached out to me.

Her son had a serious, or I'm sorry, her grandson had a serious illness, and they needed a new handicap van.

And they read about these gentlemen in the paper, and she arbitrarily just reached out.

She said, "I don't know if they'd be willing to help us or not, but this is our story."

Next thing you know, we have a $24,000 donation going- - $24,000?

- $24,000 donation, which allowed her to purchase the van.

That's just one instance that we deal with every day in a good sense related to these gentlemen.

We have situations where they realize that through these processes of dealing with the outside community, they reflect on their own personal growth and they become agents of positive change.

And they wanna reframe incarceration as a second-chance opportunity and not a dead end.

To do that, we have annual community matters meetings, which is interesting.

We invite a lot of individuals in from school districts to organizations to our local hospitals that come in.

Their executives come in.

Universities, things of that nature that come into our facility, and they sit around the table with the inmates.

And we may have 50 to 100 people in this meeting just going back and forth with ideas because the inmates wanna know, "Where else can we help?"

They give a lot to the communities, the school districts.

They work with the social workers.

The social workers will tell them what kids are obviously struggling- - And they'll create- Come across- Struggling.

- A program around that.

- They'll create a program around that where they donate sneakers.

And they'll work with individuals like Nike and so on and so forth to make sure all the sneakers are different so the other kids don't realize that the sneakers that they have on their feet are on their feet because they were- - They're different somehow.

- Are different somehow, yes.

So, they do a lot of that in their organization skills, and yeah, it makes you proud as an administrator to see what they're doing in the community.

- I'd actually like to hear from some of the participants of the program, so I think I'm gonna go to the story right now WVIA News put together, able to speak to several participants of one of the programs, the LifeLine Association, and here's what they had to say.

(screen whooshes) - LifeLine's an organization.

They basically have three purposes.

They promote personal growth.

That was the biggest thing, right?

Just feel like they have accomplished something every day.

- [Kevin] LifeLine is basically for men that are serving long-term sentences or life sentences, and it provides an opportunity to do better.

- [Prisoner] And actually tried to be part of the solution, but we once was part of the problem.

- [Evan] We meet twice a week.

We have one executive board meeting and we have committee meetings.

- [Prisoner] We spend more time in here with each other than we spend with our family, society, because the reality, we are family.

- [Evan] I love all these guys.

Being a part of this organization, it allows me to create habits for myself that will follow and transition once I'm releasing from here.

- [Prisoner] And then we try to transfer that to the environment that we reside in, and then trying to transfer that to the outside society.

- Some fraction of these guys are gonna get out.

You'd really like people to come out with skills, knowledge, and a positive attitude towards humanity and community so they wanna help people rather than causing problems for the community.

- We want them to uplift communities through philanthropy.

They have donated tens of thousands of dollars just to incredible charities out there and to people who really need the money, from Special Olympics to St.

Joseph's Center, to local school districts.

- [Evan] We know that some people do things out of desperation, and that's how many of us landed in these situations, whereas though there were financial crimes, whereas though you did something, and that's not to justify or minimize our actions, but we know what not having can do to an individual.

So, if we can provide that little thing of substance for somebody, we would love to do that.

- Some of these gentlemen have been incarcerated 40, 50 years.

They are not the individuals they were when they came in.

- [Prisoner] Well, with me, I'm a man who's been incarcerated since 23.

I'm 60 now, and my perspective on life has changed.

I wanna give back.

I wanna be part of the solution.

- [Evan] I want my legacy to be more about the person who gives, because if all that you see is bad things on the news or things on TV, you never get a chance to know us personally.

You never get a chance to know who we are and know our humanity.

- [Kevin] Don't judge us by 30 seconds of 35 years ago.

Judge us by who we are now.

- Victim sensitivity is always primary to us and it's primary to these inmates, but there's a point where, in totality, we look at our organization and the inmates who encompass it because they have to have a set standard, too.

They have to be an inmate who is somebody to be emulated within the facilities from other inmates.

We believe that justice and mercy essentially can live in the same house and the same room as redemption and accountability.

- [Kevin] We understand that the mistakes we made have consequences, but we also understand that redemption is a part of this role, too.

(screen whooshes) - So, I heard two instances there of inmates who have been there a very long time, perhaps whose crimes were committed when they were very young men and they're no longer very young men.

That is something that you discussed with me when you first came back as well.

- Yes.

- What were some of your thoughts about that?

Some of the people that you met, who obviously we can't see, but some of the people who told you their stories, what was resonant for you?

- When Faith and I participated in the banquet, the awards banquet, there was one gentleman who spoke, who talked about growing up in Philadelphia, and he had a mom, and there were issues in his family that went awry, and he turned to the streets, so he was a young man.

So, the support system that he had was gone, and he found that support system with gangs and drugs, and it led him to engage in activities that got him sent to prison in committing terrible crimes.

And you realize that young people, and this is not excusing anything, do things that are not wise, especially if they haven't had the supports that Superintendent McGinley talks a lot about.

So that these are people who are reflected.

You know, there's a guy I met who was in his 40s, and I thought maybe he's 25 or 30, but he had been there for 20 years.

And you realize they have changed and they have reflected a lot on what they've done.

And they should.

That's part of the process, absolutely.

And we all understand that that's the purpose of the correctional system, but they are not, in many cases, the men they were when they came in.

- I'm sure you, of anyone on this panel, hear this and see this a lot.

I'm not even sure what question to formulate for you right now, but when you hear stories like this, does it make you think differently about the mission that you have in Pike County?

- I appreciate the work that's going in, especially the inmates that may be released, but we can't lose sight of the other purposes of the criminal justice system, which are also deterrence and incapacitation.

So, you know, first, deterrence.

I mean, many times what I hear from a victim is we don't want them to ever do it again, right?

So there are obviously very serious crimes defined by our legislature to deter people from committing those very serious crimes, all crimes, but certainly those very serious crimes where they could receive a life sentence, and also incapacitation.

And I appreciate that we're talking about some older individuals, and we don't know their full story, right?

- True.

- But there is a three-strikes law in Pennsylvania, and you have to commit very serious violent crimes, but upon your second conviction, it's a minimum mandatory of 10 years.

Your third conviction is a minimum mandatory of 25 years, but at times, a judge could impose a life sentence.

So, maybe they have had three strikes and they haven't assimilated back into society, committed additional violent crimes, and really, that just turns into incapacitation where society has made a decision through the legislature and through a judge to say, "You're never going to get out," because it is just simply about incapacitation at that point with those repeat offenders.

- So, we're hearing all of these wonderful attributes about these programs and all the good that it's doing, but it still seems to me that SCI Coal Township is, I don't wanna say the only one doing it.

I would have no idea if other prisons in Pennsylvania are, but it seems to me as though you're kind of a front-runner here.

Is this something you have heard of, of rehabilitation and philanthropic programs within a prison before, other than this instance?

- I've heard of not these specific programs, but I've heard of raising puppies within prisons that can go out and then maybe perhaps be trained to be seeing eye dogs or perform other services for people, you know.

We see many service animals, and I've heard that some prisons allow the prisoners to take care of those puppies for a period of time, and then, you know, they go on to become service dogs.

But in general, it's the same theme to me, that they are learning to do things to help others and have a purpose to maybe make amends for their own crime, not directly to that victim, but in their own way, to then help another individual, and it gives them that purpose.

So, I've heard of programs like that.

- So, there are similar programs, just not necessarily the details that we're talking about here.

- Yes.

- What have you heard?

I'm sure you're in touch with other superintendents- - Oh my God.

Yep, yep.

- So tell me a little bit about those conversations.

- Well, the good news is I'm the senior superintendent, so I know pretty much all of them.

But that being said, they all have their own unique ways of trying to expect accountability without dehumanization.

I mean, that's the major focus of this.

I would also agree with district attorney to say that my primary responsibility is to the safety of the community, so we have a lot of safeguards before an inmate would be considered for release, not only in the institutional level and through the department, but also through probation and parole.

So, that's a critical factor in that.

One of the things I think that we can, and when you look at the programming and District Attorney spoke of the dogs, obviously, we have a dog program, too.

We've adopted over 800 dogs out of that program.

We have a litany of things we do at SCI Coal Township.

One of them is we have a horticulture program.

Our inmates grow these flowers.

Our campus is like no other.

We have a lot of flowers within our campus.

We want that humanistic approach to things.

We want inmates to feel like, "Hey, listen, I could take care of flowers.

We're gonna watch the bees.

We're gonna watch the butterflies."

But at the same time, what we do with those flowers is pretty special.

We raise the flowers, we cut them.

We work in conjunction with Bucknell University and a church group out of Shamokin where we raise the flowers, Bucknell provides the vases.

The ladies in the group of Shamokin put the bouquets together.

We go out routinely during the summer, delivering bouquets to nursing homes and personal care homes grown by the inmates with a little special saying on each one.

This year alone, we've delivered over 418 of those.

So, the programming with LifeLine and TriumpH to our floral program, to our dog program, to a lot of other things we do within that facility gives us an opportunity to really have these men grow individually and give back.

So, that's one of the key components associated with that, but community safety, as the district attorney said, is always going to take precedent.

I will go back also, I know we're gonna talk about a little bit of second degree.

- Mm-hmm.

- One of the things that we've done with the juvenile lifers, we talked about recidivism.

Our recidivism rate on juvenile lifers who most of them spent 20, 25 years in prison at the time that they were released is very, very, very low.

We talked about it before that people generally age out of crime, and those that wanna keep into that circle of crime, the district attorney said the legislative bodies have had an answer for those individuals.

We're not looking to release everyone from SCI Coal Township obviously, but we do wanna give those that had earned that opportunity.

- And superintendent, one thing you talked about I do wanna bring up is that you have a staff that wants to go home safely to their families at night.

- Correct.

- And they have a very sometimes difficult, dangerous, challenging job.

And the way you explained it to me is this is also designed to help make the environment within the facility safer for everyone, including the staff.

- It is, and that's my primary focus.

I said we have a vision at SCI Coal Township.

Our vision is clear, and I express it to my 570 staff and my 2,200 inmates.

I want everyone, whether it's the staff members or the inmates every day to wake up feeling inspired.

That's critical to me.

During the course of it, it's my job to make them feel safe.

I think we do a pretty good job of it.

Do we have a hiccups?

Sure we do, but we deal with those individuals.

And then in the end, we want them to feel fulfilled.

If we do that, if we accomplish those three critical components during each day, we're building men, we're building better men, we're building better staff, and just a better environment overall.

- I don't think the average person would put inspiration with the prison in the same sentence, but you're certainly showing right now that that's exactly what you are trying to do in this little environment.

- Agreed, and I think a lot of us have children.

I said from the beginning, and you'll see in the piece that my first day in this role, I sat with my administrative staff and I said to them, "I want every inmate in this facility treated as if it was my own son or your son incarcerated here."

I think that gives a different perspective to individuals.

And I always tell people, "Don't wait to advocate until it personally affects you."

Advocate for what's right, whether that's inside the prison walls or outside.

- So, I started to get down the road of the second-degree murder sentencing issue, but I am interested.

We'll start with you, sir, what your thoughts are on... I mean, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, as I understand it, are the two states?

- We're the two states.

Now, of course, Pennsylvania no longer has that obligation.

No longer has that statute.

And quickly, and DA Tonkin and I were discussing this before, there are lawmakers within our coverage area, Senator Lisa Baker among them, pressing for legislation that would, you know, reinstitute some kind of a requirement in the law.

And we're not really sure what happens next, correct, DA?

I mean, you know, if the legislature doesn't act, what becomes of the people sitting in Pennsylvania prisons right now on second-degree murder convictions?

- Well, the first question that Supreme Court is going to answer is whether their decision in Lee, which invalidated the life without parole portion for the sentencing of second-degree murder is whether that is going to apply retroactively.

In other words, to individuals who have been sentenced to that, not someone who is about to be sentenced or commits a crime and then will be sentenced for it, is whether it applies retroactively.

So, if it does apply retroactively without legislative action to guide the courts, then these individuals will have to be re-sentenced by the courts really without any guideline by the legislature, or to this point, the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission, so courts will have to individually review each case.

There's twofold.

The sentencing for second-degree murder is life imprisonment, and then it's actually in a different part of the statute that says if you're sentenced to life imprisonment, then you cannot be paroled.

So, there's kinda two statutory sections at play there.

- What would you like to see happen next?

What would you like the next step to be?

- I would prefer that the legislature do have some action to guide this because the other side of this, really, is the victims.

There are many victims that were agreeable to plea agreements for individuals that may have been facing the death penalty, may have been facing first-degree murder, and then were in agreement to second-degree murder because the individual, they were promised at the time, would be sentenced to life without parole.

So, those victims who agreed to that have now had that agreement taken away if the court finds the case to be retroactive.

So, for the victims, they're gonna need some certainty and structure really for their own mental health and wellbeing, knowing that this has already been taking away from them something that they thought was agreed to and done and over.

- You had said earlier that that's going to affect quite a few.

I don't wanna put you on the spot with a number, how big- - Oh, yes.

- Of an issue is this for you at SCI Coal Township?

- Well, I believe department wide, it's probably, and the district attorney may know the numbers better than me, but I believe it's around 1,500 inmates that murder 2 actually impacts across the state.

Could be more, but at SCI Coal Township, yeah, I probably have several hundred.

So, I know a lot of those cases that are obviously going to be judged down the road.

And again, as the district attorney said, if the legislative bodies guide that sentence structure, then it would look to, potentially if they hit that minimum sentence date, then seeing the parole board and parole making the final decision after they go through the processes within the institution itself.

Again, I'm very familiar with a lot of cases.

There's a lot of cases.

There's some cases that the district attorney certainly described.

There's other cases where individuals had nothing to do with the homicide.

They were involved in a felony, which was a robbery.

They may have been outside at that point, sitting in a car, things of that nature, and somebody ended up passing away who they went to commit the crime with, and they're charged with second-degree murder.

So, there's a wide range of cases associated with that.

A lot of the men, certainly there are some men that don't deserve to be released from prison.

There's others that certainly do.

But in that case, the things that keep me up at night personally are the individuals who don't conform to anything within the prison walls.

And I think if there's a legislative action, they need to focus on individuals who max their sentences with no supervision whatsoever.

And I'm sure the district attorney's familiar with some of these cases.

They need to focus on some type of supervision following their release.

If they had abhorrent behavior within the prison walls and didn't do what was expected of them, whether it's through program or behavior or anything like that, and they serve a sentence of, say, five to 10 years, three to six years, 10 to 20 years, and they serve that maximum sentence and then we just released them.

As a society, that's not good for anybody.

- Right.

- So we also have to focus on those cases.

The second-degree cases, those guys, I would feel a lot more comfortable with the cases that I'm referring to and that have earned the opportunity for release and don't have the specifics that the district attorney talked about over the individuals who have done a three to six or a five to 10 who walked out of prison on their maximum day without achieving anything during that incarceration.

- And obviously, in a very anonymous way, Roger, I imagine this was something that you spoke to the inmates about.

You mentioned this was on their minds.

- It was on their minds.

Mostly, I would say back at the awards luncheon that we attended, it was something that came up, and some of the speakers that came in were people who had been paroled in other cases, and so they are very concerned to see, you know, look, they would like to see what they see as a more equitable and individualized sentencing framework than a one-size-fits-all.

- As opposed to a sweep.

- Right, a sweep.

- Right.

Well, we're gonna switch gears just a little bit because you had talked about the flowers.

We saw the flowers in the earlier story.

I'm wondering about green thumbs because it seems as though gardening is one of the activities that the inmates must like to do.

- Yes.

Yes.

- And that leads us into the next story that we would like to show.

I will say this, in the interest of full disclosure, as Roger has already said this evening, WVIA is among the nonprofits that received a donation from the LifeLine Association.

Another project that benefited is something called the Red Shield Community Garden in Williamsport.

It's how I was looking at the garden and thinking about the flowers.

Let's find out more about that particular project.

(screen whooshes) - [Interviewer] Tell me about this greenhouse, why it's here.

- That's a miraculous story.

Inmates, SCI Coal Township, and the LifeLine program as part of their incredible charitable giving.

This is a testimonial to the community impact of what they can do.

- What they're doing is really remarkable.

And you know, we looked around, talked to McGinley, he says, "There isn't another prisoner-run charity in any of the prisons in the state of Pennsylvania."

- We want them to uplift communities through philanthropy.

They have donated tens of thousands of dollars just to incredible charities out there and to people who really need the money.

- What has this greenhouse done for us?

Well, we can grow things from seed.

The people who are gardening out here can grow plants from seeds, take care of their plants in there.

We extend our growing season.

But it's done a heck of a lot more than that.

Because of the publicity of that happening here, our funding has increased substantially.

Our volunteer, the community awareness is unbelievable.

So, those fellows there can't underestimate the value of their charitable giving.

- Do you understand these guys make, if they have the best job in prison, they're making 55 cents an hour.

It's extremely positive for the prisoners.

Everybody wants to know, "How do you raise money?"

- Inmates within a facility to go to commissary.

That's where they get their products from.

We actually allow for product sales that are not generally on a commissary list, so it gives inmates more of an option.

Inmates obviously get money from their family, friends, whoever sends them money, and then they decide how they're gonna spend that money.

So, the sales, they're just like a regular business.

They'll profit from the sales, and they'll use those profits to donate directly back into the community.

- The inmates took it upon themselves to do this, and so with them taking it upon themselves and wanting to give back to a specific community is a pretty amazing thing.

You don't hear about that a lot.

For them to be able to get together and raise $4,000 is an amazing feat, and it shows that they're interested in the communities that are around them, not just where they are, but in the communities around them.

(gentle music) - I like to joke that I have a very black thumb.

I can't keep plants alive for too long.

And it seems as though the inmates have found a way to really start to garden.

Can you tell me a little bit about how that started before we talked to Carl Milofsky?

- Well, that was something certainly in Sid's case when he came to the inmates like anybody else would who wanna come in and speak about potential donations.

He came in and he pitched what he needed to as far as what his envision was in Williamsport, that he can grow food for those in need.

The inmates, obviously, that's what they are there for.

They are there to help others.

Inside the facility, the flowers themselves, I said, you know, it doesn't need to look like a prison.

Individuals living in here, there's a sense of humanity that we have to have.

So, when you come into SCI Coal Township, and I'd invite anyone in, we are very transparent, you'll see the murals.

You'll see the artistic murals that the inmates have painted.

You'll see the flowers.

You'll see how the inmates who worked in landscaping details prior to coming to prison, not only take pride in it, but work with their landscapers to get things donated to the prison so they can plant a little more.

We worked with Bucknell again, a professor who was a botanical genius when it came to what we should plant and what we should grow.

So, we grow a lot of perennials, and just listening to not only, you know, as Roger said, the staff or the inmates, but the staff to say just how beautiful it's transformed the facility in terms of our gardens and what the inmates have done, so they take a lot of pride in it.

They'll even dry out seeds over the wintertime.

- Well, Carl Milofsky is here.

He is a current or former Bucknell University professor.

- Emeritus professor.

- Emeritus professor.

All right.

And I recognize that you are the teacher of the Inside-Out program here, but I'm curious, because we just heard from you in the story.

You come a little closer to the microphone there.

- Sorry.

- Why do you think it's so important to be involved in something like this?

What got you involved in this?

- Well, I spent 15 years as a volunteer in the federal prison as a visitor.

I was visiting guys who had been in very similar to the state prison guys, except I was visiting them one-on-one, I would say, in a very stressful situation.

And I got a letter from the LifeLine guys and asked if I would come out and work with them.

And I thought the opportunity of working with a group would be much more fun than talking to individuals, especially at the end.

I was doing over video, which is kind of uncomfortable.

And when I came out, I just found the guys very intelligent, very thoughtful, very, I don't know, committed to all kinds of things.

They wanted to reach out in different ways.

One of their ideas was LifeLine.

And I mean, I'm sorry, with Inside-Out.

And I think with Inside-Out, they have an opportunity to spend time with Bucknell students who frankly are, you know, they're among the strongest students in the country.

They go on to be leaders in organizations.

And I think the prisoners understood that if the students got to know them as people, they would have a fuller and rounder and more respectful understanding of what prisoners were like.

So, our first student is in the Secret Service now, so she has a different understanding of... You know, from a law enforcement perspective, she has the other side.

We have people who are running social work agencies, and so all those people bring the perspective of knowing the inside guys on a personal basis, understanding that they're caring, that they're friends, that they have moral convictions, that they're smart and thoughtful, good readers, good analysts of academic problems, and so all of that.

I'd say for myself, I don't know.

When I first went into prison, I just found it really interesting.

I was really drawn into it.

I liked meeting the people and working with them.

I thought they were eager to learn and eager to do what I do.

- Carl, forgive me, Julie, can I ask you a quick question that we talked about in my interview?

Why did you decide to go visit inmates?

Most of us probably wouldn't decide to do that.

What drew you to do that?

- You know, I had a student who actually was a volunteer at Coal Township in 1993, who then went out and became a legal intern at USP Lewisburg.

And at the volunteer appreciation dinner, invited me to come along, and I met a guy who was a visitor.

And I don't know, I was just drawn in, very interested.

I was interested in the institution.

I'm a sociologist, so I kind of interested in that sort of thing.

And as I met people, I was just really intrigued to have people who, I don't know, were so thoughtful.

I think it's really, personally, it's kind of academic.

I think people are right to to read and have philosophical discussions, whatever they did.

And I enjoyed being part of that.

- You have a perspective that very few people ever get being able to see the inside of something like that, not just once or twice, but over the course of a few years.

Is there something that comes to mind, what people would be most surprised about, or is there a misconception in the world about prisons?

What surprised you?

- I mean, you know, I lead groups.

I bring student groups in.

And now that I'm retired, I work with an organization called the Bucknell Institute of Lifelong Learning at Bucknell.

It's a sort of senior college.

I do an Inside-Out class with senior citizens, and they come in.

One of the people who's my co-teacher is my wife, and she had been listening to me talk about how much I enjoyed it, how inspirational I found the guys, so she comes in and does it with me.

She is just absolutely emphatic.

That was a life-changing experience for her.

And I would say for almost everybody who came in, all of the Bucknell students, all of the LifeLine students, it's that way.

I mean, there's a very strong feeling of friendship and welcoming and interconnection, warmth between the men and the outside people that completely takes people by surprise.

I think the main thing is just, you know, the atmosphere and the human connection that's totally unexpected for people and really valuable to people, so.

- Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you very much.

And the garden is gorgeous.

- [Carl] Yeah, well, that's all Sid.

- I know, that's all Sid.

Sid, thank you for being here as well.

I'm just kinda curious, the nitty-gritty of this, exactly how it works.

And it was explained in one of the stories, but I think it's interesting to be repeated how inmates are earning this money, where the money comes from.

Do they get the say as to where it goes?

How does it work logistically?

- Yes, they actually have their own bylaws.

Each organization has their own bylaws.

They generate their revenue through sales that generally don't have products sold on commissary, so they would vet that through their staff advisors.

They'd formulate a plan of action, a proposal for the administrative staff, and finally, myself to review.

That comes to me up through the chain.

Obviously, it's washed out from everybody below me until it gets to me.

And I will make the final determination what products are sold.

Obviously, they're products that are in line with our security within the facility and things of that nature.

We never sell anything that would actually, you know, degrade that component of what we do, but we allow the inmates to sell things outside of what they can normally get on commissary.

So, they process that sale, and that sale is then taken care of, obviously, through our business office and things of that nature through cash slips.

And once those proceeds come back, their executive boards meet with their totality of their organizations to determine where they're going to process as far as sending their money.

And we have a lot of, like I said, individuals from the outside reaching out to us, Special Olympics, things of that nature.

In fact, we've been donating now to the Special Olympics where the Special Olympics was actually going to have to take away some of the things that they've done.

But since the inmates got involved, that put everything back on the table for them.

So, every year, the inmates are giving the things like Special Olympics, the homes we talked about, the school districts, things of that nature.

So, that's how they get the sales done, the proceeds, they vote on it.

It then comes to me.

We look at the organizations they're donating to.

We make sure they're legitimate, and then we approve the donation.

- $24,000 worth, I wonder how long that took.

- Yeah, $24,000 worth was a combination of LifeLine and TriumpH, and we allowed them to have a couple sales to accumulate those monies.

And I remember calling Mrs.

Belles, and I said, "You're welcome to come in.

The donation is ready."

And, you know, I had told her at that point, "Mrs.

Belles, I think you are going to be extremely satisfied for your grandson when this day is over."

And she was.

She was absolutely blown away by it.

- So, with just about two minutes to go here, final thoughts about what we're talking about here tonight, whether that be prison reform, sentence reform, or whether or not we're doing enough to make inmates feel like human beings.

I don't wanna put words in your mouth.

Just some final thoughts about what you would like to see going forward on this.

- Well, what I'd like to see is action by the legislature to try to give victims some certainty, not only if the court finds that they have to be re-sentencing for the retroactive decision that they're going to come to, and even going forward, that it's not uncertainty for victims in second-degree cases where they have indeed lost a loved one.

And the Senate Bill 1400, which was by Senator Lisa Baker, provided a structure where some of the most violent individuals would receive life in prison without parole, but then there was kind of relief valves in there.

If they could prove certain things, it would be a lesser sentence, with the standard sentence being 35 years.

- Something to watch, for sure.

Superintendent.

- Again, I represent 2,200 men.

We're trying to better our lives every single day.

I believe that they've chosen a life of significance, that they can have a positive impact on others.

That's a long-term process associated with that.

And certainly, there's gentlemen that we talk about regarding sentence structure and things of that nature that I know personally that I would fully support in the sense of release from prison based upon what they've done within the facility, how many years they've been incarcerated.

- Right.

- And there's others, obviously, that for the betterment of the community, I would not.

So, I believe that whatever is done through the legislative bodies, as the district attorney said, we're going to have stopgaps in place for individuals who should not be released, but we're also going to have measures in place for individuals that are in the opportunity to do so.

- Wonderful.

Thank you both for being here.

And Roger DuPuis, thank you for your wonderful reporting on this topic.

- Yes, you can read about it at wvia.org.

- Which was the next thing I was going to say.

- Absolutely.

- Absolutely.

That's gonna do it for this episode- - Thank you.

- Of "Keystone Edition."

Next month, we're talking about veterans, specifically veterans' mental health and wellness.

Be sure to check out wvia.org for all the wonderful reporting that WVIA News has done on this topic.

But for now, from all of us here at WVIA, we'll see you next time.