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| Bucks County Prison to Limit Visitor Contact |
| By Allentown Morning Call |
| Published: 11/25/2002 |
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Inmates in Bucks County Prison will no longer be allowed any physical contact with their visitors starting early next year, the panel that oversees the institution decided last week. In an 8-2 vote, the Bucks County Prison Oversight Board approved the $30,000 construction of a partition at the maximum-security prison in Doylestown Township. The addition, which will be made of booths where inmates will sit facing their visitors through glass similar to a bank teller's window, could take as little as 90 days to install. The decision to place a device to physically separate inmates from their family members and friends came after drugs, cigarettes and other prohibited items continued to get into the prison, despite recent changes in policy meant to keep out such contraband. For more than a year, inmates and visitors have been allowed only to exchange brief kisses at the beginning and end of their visit, but have had to remain seated in aisles patrolled by officers for the rest of the visits. That had been the policy since the summer of 2001, when a grand jury concluded that inmate Michael Fadako died from an overdose of drugs that had been given to him by his girlfriend during a meeting in the prison visitation room. Before that time, inmates and visitors were allowed to embrace and gather in groups in the visitation room. |
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