Credit to Prisoners for Time Spent at a Hospital Treatment Program

In Jackson v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 130 Pa. Commw. 527, 568 A.2d 1004 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1990), this Court examined whether an in-patient treatment program at Eagleville Hospital was sufficiently restrictive so as to permit credit for time in the program. The Court concluded that the program did not have "sufficient custodial aspects to characterize the time spent there as confinement rather than at liberty." Id. at 1006. Critical to this conclusion were the following facts: Eagleville Hospital is not a secure facility. The doors to the hospital are not locked, there is no fencing around the facility, and the hospital does nothing to stop the patients from leaving. Additionally, the hospital does not treat parolees differently than other patients with the exception that, if a parolee were to leave the hospital before completing the program, the hospital would notify the parole authorities. Id. Being able to leave the hospital without restraint was dispositive.