CITIZENS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE AND REHABILITATION INC

"A Non-profit 501 (C) (3) Organization"

Helping communities and individuals to help themselves through information and training!  The truth will set you free!

We welcome information, letters, and comments pertaining to what your likes or dislikes may be. We also welcome your input as to things you might like to see included on our Web page.  

Welcome to the new website for Citizens for Social Change and Rehabilitation Inc., also known as CSCR and CSCR INC. We hope that you will find this web site informative and entertaining. We will endeavor to bring you items of interest, such as bills proposed by lawmakers that will have an impact on the tax paying citizens, also information that has other wise been held from common knowledge, possibly not kept secret, but just not publicized as much as it should be. We will research each story or fact as much as possible to present true facts. Information that we can not substantiate at the time we go to print we will denote by specifying the information as rumor or unsubstantiated. Should we err in this task we will make corrections as soon as humanly possible.  

We will be pressing to get a corporation, company, or private individuals to donate space for an office and training rooms to initiate programs for the poor, low income, and ex-offenders. Since we are a 501(C)(3) registered non-profit organization any donation of space, equipment, or money can be used as a tax write off at the end of the year! There will also be programs for young adults. All programs will include G.E.D., computers, job training, social skills training, job interview training, and more. This includes asking employers for full and part time work for adults along with summer work and internships for school age young adults. Internships may not pay a salary but the intern will get work experience, a work reference from both the employer and our organization against applying for future employment. Some companies will hire the intern after graduation or completion of a specific course. This of course hinges on our being able to find a property that will accommodate our plans! At present we now have a parole package for those who are within three months of being paroled. The package includes forms for applying for or reinstatement of a drivers license. It also has a form for a Social Security card, and a form for a Birth Certificate. One or all of these identification forms are needed for employment as required by Home Land Security.

One way in which everyone can help is to write to your State Representative or Senator, or both asking that they give their support to our organization and work with us to bring these programs to fruition. If you wish to forward your letters to our organization we will present them to the politicians representing you and your district. There is also a need for volunteers to do various task, some of which may be preformed from your own home and we would supply some of the equipment, paper, envelopes, and postage, etc. 

Recycle!

Help the environment and our organization by contributing your old cell phones and print cartridges to us. We will be happy to supply companies, stores, community centers, corporations, etc. with containers in which to collect these items. When you believe that you have enough just give us a call and we will gladly have someone with CSCR INC Organization identification to pick them up. We also except monetary donations which can be deducted from your income taxes.

We are "a light in the dark"!

Most of you have heard that S.C.I . Graterford will be closing it's doors but according to information that we have gathered from reliable political sources these institutions are running at full capacity and they will not be closing in the near future. The Department of Corrections, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does not own the land on which many of these institutions are built. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania owns approximately two or so sites, the others are leased from private land owners. We believe this was an error by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for not investing in the land since the Federal and State Governments push for citizen taxpayers to invest for the future. The Commonwealth has not followed this rule in protecting the taxpayer. These lands are now worth many millions of dollars today compared to when they were leased and could have been bought at a comparatively cheap price. This was a way of spending taxpayer money without regard to future investment income!

There was a rumor that there were plans to close S.C.I. Chester. Contractors have been interested in building condominiums on this site since S.C.I. Chester is near the river and Casinos. We have been informed that for the time being there are no plans in the works to close S.C.I. Chester. We will keep an eye on this one!!

More substantial information!

At the end of last year we disseminated a copy of  the rules for health co-pay issued by Dr. Beard as the head of The Department of Corrections. The rule stated that there was a five dollar co-pay for each visit unless it was a visit pertaining to an on going condition in which case there would be no co-pay assessed for visits pertaining to the same condition. Not only are there co-pays being charged for each visit whether or not the visit is for an on going condition but this co-pay changes from institution to institution and can be as much as fifteen dollars. A small pack of aspirin which used to sell in the commissary for less than a dollar is no longer sold there although you can get two aspirin for three dollars plus the co-pay if you want to go on sick call!

If an inmate becomes disabled and can't walk to the infirmary there is a charge of twenty five to thirty dollars to put them on a golf cart to transport them less than an 1/8 of a mile. The funny part of this situation is that most of the townships  do not charge for and ambulance to transport them to a hospital at a greater distance. You must remember that these townships receive federal money because those incarcerated are counted as living in the area for tax purposes.

Lets discuss the fact that inmates are to receive a statement for their account each month, by D.O.C. regulations. This regulation is not being followed and if the inmate or their family ask for an accounting since the person may not have received a statement in a couple of months or so " at the discretion of the institution", why are they assessing the individual and/or family twenty five dollars and twenty five cents a page to give them what they should have given them in the first place?

In some institutions there is a very high cost for goods in vending machines in the visiting rooms. The institutions that use real money are prone to be reasonable but the ones that make use of tokens seem to be much higher. Could it be that using tokens makes the money much harder to account for? When asked where all of this extra money goes the stock answer is the "General Fund". Who does the accounting on this fund and when do they make it public so that taxpayers can get an idea as to how much of their tax money is being replaced or utilized for other purposes. Since the taxpayer funds the D.O.C. along with federal tax money whatever money is squeezed from the inmates and their families is still taxpayer funds!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our volunteers!

          Ms. Julia Bright

          Ms. Rosalyn Jones

          Ms. Lois Mitchell

          Ms. Lisa Marcisin

Many thanks to our corporate donors!

          General Electric Energy

          Gravic, Corporation

         This is the end for now but check back often, there is more to come!!!