In May, 1979, inmates at the Bucks County Prison in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. §1983 against the county in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs, represented by Buck's County Legal Aid and the Public Defender, asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that their constitutional rights had been violated by unspecified conditions of confinement. The class consisted of all current and future inmates at the Bucks County Prison.

On June 13, 1983, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Judge Clifford Scott Green) issued a consent decree in the case, providing for plaintiff relief in the areas of population caps, physical temperature of the facility, work release, medical care, including specific medical and gynecological care for women inmates, access to other facilities for women inmates, staffing, classification procedures, pre-trial procedures, and transfer procedures.

On March 31, 2003, the parties modified the consent decree through a stipulated agreement. The new agreement provided for changes in the areas of modification to the physical facility of the prison, construction of a mental health unit for women, provision of an exercise yard for women, record keeping, programming, rehabilitative treatment for drug and alcohol abusers, staff training, and a prison oversight board.

Kristen Sagar - 10/13/2006


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