Lawmakers want Vermont prisoners out of Pennsylvania

Some Vermont lawmakers are calling on the Scott administration to move more than 250 prisoners out of a facility in Pennsylvania.

Key lawmakers say prisoner complaints and several reported issues are prompting their call to move prisoners out of Camp Hill near Harrisburg.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Sears says the inmates are at a detention facility, not a prison with treatment options and other services. He says the agreement with Pennsylvania has the Vermont prisoners under the control of that state's Corrections Department.

"I'm asking them to move sooner rather than later, not to wait for us to build the beds that we need," said Sears, D-Bennington County.

"I think it is time that we ask the administration to look at alternatives, either some other place in Pennsylvania or another state," said Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield.

Members of the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee voted Tuesday afternoon to ask the Scott administration to move the prisoners as soon as possible.