CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - At budget time, it has become a mantra for the Franklin County Board of Commissioners to say that more than 75 cents of each tax dollar collected by the county goes to pay for crime, courts and corrections.
On Monday, at the annual Franklin County Summit, held this year at the soon-to-open Franklin County Jail, municipal officials got to see and hear how that money is spent. Representatives of the Pennsylvania State Police, the District Attorney's Office, the Court of Common Pleas, the Day Reporting Center and the county's Corrections Department spoke about their role of the criminal justice system in the $30 million building.
"This is probably the most high-tech jail in the country," Warden John Wetzel said of the 470-bed jail in the Cumberland Valley Business Park. Due to open this spring, Wetzel said the jail has more than 100 cameras to cover inmates around the clock, along with booking, medical and programming areas.