Is In Patient Drug and Alcohol Treatment Considered ''Incarceration'' ?

In Willis v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 842 A.2d 490 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2004), this Court considered whether the in-patient drug and alcohol program at Gateway was sufficiently custodial to be characterized as incarceration. This is the very same program we consider in this appeal. The facts critical to our decision in Willis were as follows: residents were not locked in; no one would try to stop a resident who walked out; and residents who left without permission would not be charged criminally with escape. The Court held that the confinement in Gateway not sufficiently custodial to characterize time spent there as incarceration, in spite of Willis' protest that he could not leave "on his own accord." Id. at 491.