Community Corner

MontCo Prison Inmates in Lower Providence Have New Bus

Inmates from the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Lower Providence have a new bus to take them to the Montgomery county courthouse in Norristown.

Inmates in Montgomery county have a new $142,080 bus that takes them back and forth from the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Lower Providence to the Montgomery county courthouse in Norristown, according to phillyBurbs.com.

The bus, with 36 seats, has replaced a modified school bus that the county administrators and the sheriff considered “a maintenance nightmare.”

The bus has particular security features, but, according to the county’s Chief Financial Officer Uri Z. Monson, nothing too fancy. 

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The security features comprise safe sections for the driver and the deputies, as well as furnishings that enable inmates to be held to the seats by handcuffs. More features include audio and video surveillance, and sections that are partitioned off to hold the inmates who are deemed more dangerous than others. 

The old bus had been a maintenance pit following its first day of service, when it was in a significant accident that was followed by repairing the bus by fusing two busses together.

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The bus repairs from the middle of 2002 to the middle of 2012 were about $43,500. The older bus has over 63,500 miles on it and broke down three times.


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