Recent budgetary constraints have compelled state legislatures to rethink prison as a rehabilitative resource rather than warehouse project to simply store persons convicted of non-violent offenses. To that end, the General Assembly in our Commonwealth passed legislation titled the Recidivism Risk Reduction Incentive Program, 61 Pa.C.S. § 4501 et seq., for eligible persons. This specific…

In the recent case of Commonwealth v. Elliott, 2012 Pa. LEXIS 2088, 12-13 (Pa. 2012), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was confronted with the issues of whether a county board of probation offices, or the agents and officers thereof, can impose conditions upon probationers that are not explicitly delineated in a trial court’s sentencing and probation…