By Bret Grote, Emily Abendroth and Robert Saleem Holbrook
June 19, 2014
Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed 2014-2015 budget will give the Department of Corrections a $78 million increase over current spending.
If Corbett's budget is approved, for the first time in history, the Commonwealth will spend more than $2 billion on prisons. And yet, less than $40 million, or about 2 percent, of the agency's budget will go to "Inmate Education and Training".
July 22, 2014 
It is heartening to see that the U.S. Supreme Court and counties around Pennsylvania are finally recognizing that mandatory minimums are unconstitutional and ineffective ("Pa. mandatory minimums seen in flux," July 8). Mandatory minimums do not reduce crime or recidivism, they are overly punitive, and they do not take into consideration individual circumstances. Such sentences add thousands of people to an already out-of-control prison system at a time when the state cannot afford to build more prisons.
