HARRISBURG – Joel S. Dickson, a 10-year corrections and 26-year U.S. Army veteran, has been named superintendent of the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh. The appointment is effective April 11.
“I have known Joel for many years and can honestly say that he is a man of honor, integrity and dignity,” said Corrections Secretary Jeffrey A.
Beard, Ph.D. “Joel has served his country and this commonwealth in an exceptional way, and I am confident that he will lead SCI Pittsburgh through its reopening and operation over the next several years in the same manner.”
Dickson began his corrections career as a deputy superintendent for internal security at SCI Pittsburgh in July 1998. Since then, he has served as deputy superintendent for centralized services and deputy superintendent for facility management, both at SCI Pittsburgh. In August 2003, he transferred to SCI Rockview to serve as deputy superintendent for facility management.
Dickson has an extensive military career, having attained the rank of major in the U.S. Army from 1972 to 1989. In July 1989, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and commander of the 97th Military Police Battalion. In July 1991, he served as the chief of the Military Police Branch of the U.S. Army Personnel Command. Dickson was a student at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle from 1993 to 1994. From August 1994 to December 1996, he served as colonel and command provost marshal in the U.S. Army Material Command. His last tour of duty was as colonel and chief of the U.S. Army Force Protection Assistance Team, operating out of the Pentagon from 1997 to 1998.
SCI Pittsburgh, also known locally as “Western Pen,” opened in 1882.
In 2005, the prison was “mothballed” and kept in running order in case the state prison system’s inmate population rose to a level where the prison may need to be temporarily reopened.
Earlier this year, faced with an increasing inmate population, officials announced that the prison would be reopened around July 2007 and
that it would initially house 750 minimum- to lower-medium security inmates.
An additional 750 inmates could be added by the end of 2007, bringing the overall prison population to 1,500 inmates. The prison will house minimum- to lower-medium security offenders with substance abuse problems and who would be returning to the western part of the state after incarceration. Officials are in the process of readying certain portions of the prison for operation.