Temporary Lehigh County Corrections Trailers Removed 22 Years Later

Twenty-two years after they were installed as a temporary solution to house male work-release inmates, Lehigh County's Community Correctional Facility trailers in Salisbury Township were removed Tuesday.

Work crews removed the deteriorating trailers, whose floors had rotted and become structurally unsound, according to Lehigh County Director of Corrections Ed Sweeney. The trailers housed 18 inmates each and had been used used as recently as this past weekend.

The trailers were connected to the correctional facility which is undergoing a $6.1 million renovation and expansion started in early 2010 and expected to be completed in September. The new facility will add room for 100 more inmates, for a capacity of 400 and merge the male and female centers into one facility with separate wings, according to a press release.

The facility is for low-risk local offenders who have been sentenced to serve a term of confinement, the statement said.  The offenders are permitted to leave the facility for work, community service or rehabilitative programs.

"The housing will still be austere and no place where people want to spend their evenings," Sweeney said in a statement issued in a press release.

The idea behind the center was always to house them away from the main prison population and focus on rehabilitation and developing better life skills.

"A community corrections center, however, is vital to reducing corrections spending and to improve recidivism rates as we try to teach inmates how to work, get their lives in order and become productive members of the community," he said.

According to the press release, Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham said the center operated at a much lower cost than the main prison and saved the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars since it was built.