Minimum Security

Pete Rose's attorneys yesterday asked for and received permission for the former baseball star to begin serving his prison sentence sooner than Aug. 10, the date originally set by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel signed an order yesterday making it likely that Rose will report in the next few days to the minimum-security camp in Marion, Ill., to begin the five-month sentence arising from his guilty plea on charges of filing false tax returns in 1985 and 1987.

Petty thieves, shoplifters, uninsured drivers and others convicted of minor crimes in Burlington County are being shown the path to honor along the county's roadsides. Last weekend, for the first time, two dozen of these convicts spent 16 hours cleaning trash from the shoulders of seven miles of county roads, according to Harold Delaroi, a county management specialist. Another crew of convicts serving "weekend sentences" will return Saturday, he said. On weekends past, such sentences would have meant spending 60 hours in minimum-security detention.

The warden at the Atlantic County Jail was demoted and eight officers were fined as the result of the Oct. 31 escape of a sex offender who walked out the front door of a minimum-security building in Mays Landing, past a monitoring camera and two guards. The inmate, Oreader Johnson, 24, who was serving a 364-day sentence for a sex crime, turned himself in to state police Nov. 3 after spending three days at his mother's home. County Administrator John Armstrong announced Wednesday that Warden Joseph Wagner had been demoted from his $45,600-a-year post.

State and Haverford Township officials agreed last night to take a number of steps to counteract the growing problem of walkaways - including convicted criminals - from Haverford State Hospital. Dr. John Fong, superintendent of the hospital, said that about 30 patients leave the hospital without authorization each month. Haverford Police Chief William McNasby said that in the first six months of this year, 30 to 40 of those patients were considered dangerous to themselves and others.

Former State Rep. Thomas Druce will spend the next 22 months mowing grass, mopping floors and possibly pushing inmates in wheelchairs at a minimum security prison in western Pennsylvania. Two weeks after being ordered back to prison by a Dauphin County judge, the state Department of Corrections assigned Druce to serve out his two-to-four year sentence at SCI-Laurel Highlands - the state's primary prison for elderly and infirm inmates in Somerset County, 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

The Winslow Township safety director's pleas that state officials remove prison inmates from Ancora State Psychiatric Hospital went unheeded yesterday. Instead, state officials offered to beef up security at the state-owned facility and install special telephone lines for local police and residents. Township Committeeman Ceasare Napoliello, Winslow's director of safety, met yesterday with officials from the state Department of Corrections and Department of Human Services in an effort to persuade state officials to remove 217 Leesburg State Prison inmates from Ancora.

Operation Clean Shores, a state project credited with helping to clean up the Atlantic shoreline in New Jersey, is about to make its way to Burlington County and its shores along the Delaware River. The Department of Environmental Protection and Energy project, aimed at removing trash from the Jersey shorefront, has been in place since 1989. During its test run that year, 490 tons of waste were removed in 10 days by inmates from state minimum-security prisons. Since then, 12,000 tons of debris have been removed from the shores of the Raritan Bay and New York Harbor.

An inmate who walked away late Friday evening from the minimum-security ward of the Bayside State Prison, located on the same grounds as the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in Winslow Township, remained at large yesterday. Local law-enforcement authorities throughout South Jersey have been alerted to watch out for David Femminella, 39, who started serving a five-year sentence on Jan. 13 for receiving stolen property and possession of a controlled dangerous substance, said Patricia Mulcahy, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections.

An inmate who had just become eligible for parole walked away from the minimum-security unit of Bayside State Prison, on the grounds of the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, late Sunday afternoon and remained at large last night. Law-enforcement officials in South Jersey have been alerted to watch out for John Pierce, 42, who was serving a combined 25-year sentence for robbery, and manufacturing and distributing drugs, said Bob McHugh, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

Former State Sen. Wayne Bryant will be heading to the rolling hills of West Virginia, where he has been ordered to begin his four-year prison term for corruption this month. The once-powerful Camden County Democrat and chairman of the Senate's Budget and Appropriations Committee received notice from the federal Bureau of Prisons that he must report to the correctional institution in Beckley on Aug. 25. In U.S. District Court in Trenton last month, lawyers for Bryant, 61, of Lawnside, said they might ask that Bryant remain free while he appealed his conviction.

EVEN in federal prison in Ashland, Ky., Vincent J. Fumo, No. 62033-066, has connections among its 300 prisoners. The former state senator, who started serving a 55-month sentence on Monday, met a South Philly pal inside his new "minimum security" home, 525-miles from Philadelphia. The unidentified South Philly pal "called home to his wife with a message that dad was ok and he'd be in contact in a few days," Fumo's son, Vincent E. Fumo, wrote in his first e-mail dispatch at 11:33 a.m. yesterday to his father's "large group of core friends and family.

Former State Sen. Wayne Bryant will be heading to the rolling hills of West Virginia, where he has been ordered to begin his four-year prison term for corruption this month. The once-powerful Camden County Democrat and chairman of the Senate's Budget and Appropriations Committee received notice from the federal Bureau of Prisons that he must report to the correctional institution in Beckley on Aug. 25. In U.S. District Court in Trenton last month, lawyers for Bryant, 61, of Lawnside, said they might ask that Bryant remain free while he appealed his conviction.

Former NBA referee Tim Donaghy surrendered his freedom at 12:30 p.m. yesterday when he reported to the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Fla., to begin serving a 15-month sentence. Donaghy, 41, the Delaware County native who pleaded guilty last year to gambling and wire-fraud charges, must serve at least 12 months in jail. He admitted to providing inside basketball picks to Cardinal O'Hara buddies James "Baba" Battista, of Phoenixville, and Thomas Martino, of Boothwyn. Felicia Ponce, spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said the minimum-security Pensacola prison camp does not have fences.

Michael Vick is keeping in shape at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., by playing football in the prison yard. "Apparently, there was a prison football team and he played quarterback for both sides," Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank told the New York Daily News in a story published yesterday. The suspended Falcons quarterback is serving a 23-month term at the minimum-security satellite prison camp after pleading guilty in August to a federal dogfighting conspiracy.

Former State Rep. Thomas Druce will spend the next 22 months mowing grass, mopping floors and possibly pushing inmates in wheelchairs at a minimum security prison in western Pennsylvania. Two weeks after being ordered back to prison by a Dauphin County judge, the state Department of Corrections assigned Druce to serve out his two-to-four year sentence at SCI-Laurel Highlands - the state's primary prison for elderly and infirm inmates in Somerset County, 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

A collaborative mural project involving a North Philadelphia neighborhood, advocates for victims of violent crime, and felons has spawned a new work program at Graterford Prison. The state prison will employ up to 15 inmates full time to paint murals for Philadelphia neighborhoods, prison officials said this week. "We have the manpower, supervision and the skill to do it," said prison superintendent David DiGuglielmo, who came up with the idea after learning that city muralists were struggling to meet the demand for new art. "It's a good idea, and I'd like to make it a reality.

MAURICE RIVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. - The sight would make the Birdman of Alcatraz happy. In the former sawmill at Bayside State Prison in Cumberland County, inmates in orange can be found noisily cutting wood and hammering it together to build bluebird nest boxes, making as many as 100 a day. It has been going on since 1992, and as Bayside administrator Charles Leone will tell you, the Bluebird Nestbox Project serves many purposes: It keeps...

It was the same sad scene yesterday along Philadelphia's Chestnut Street in front of stately Independence Hall: the most historic minimum-security prison in America. Bicycle racks, posts, and National Park Service rangers blocked pedestrian and vehicle alike. But maybe not for long. Mayor Street's decision to reconsider permanently closing the block separating Independence Hall from the new Liberty Bell pavilion is worthy of praise - and hope. Hope that America's birthplace might be pardoned, after all. Hope that it will be freed from barricades that mar cherished values represented by the city's historic shrines.

A fisherman walked barefoot down a strip of seashore country road as we passed by, his fingers sunk into the gray, bulbous head of an octopus, its limp tentacles swaying against his calf. No one else walked the road, which was lined with several homes that faced the Pacific. There was no sound or movement other than the surf harmlessly battering a saw-toothed barrier of volcanic rock and black coral. The fisherman glanced at us only long enough to show indifference as he strolled onward with his dinner.

Walter Pang remembers six years ago when the village clerk brought him the news that Tamms, a crossroads deep in southernmost Illinois, had bested 33 other communities to become the site of the state's first "Supermax" prison. "I was out working with my superintendent," says Pang, who is in his third term as mayor. "She came running up and told me. I jumped for joy. " Pang, like the rest of Tamms, was convinced that the prison would be the catalyst to jump-start the economically depressed little town, which had an unemployment rate of 21 percent.