Committee Hearing, June 11, 2007

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Monday, June 11, 2007 11:00 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO, CHAIR COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN RESOLUTION 060711 - Resolution authorizing the Council Committee on Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings regarding the inmate overcrowding and security problems at the Philadelphia Prison System. - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2

Good morning. I'd like to call the Committee on Public Health and Human Services to order and note that this Committee was held October 31, 2006 and the Committee was recessed to the call of the Chair. Therefore, a quorum was established at that first hearing and there is no need for -- that quorum stands through this hearing. And, also, it was a resolution 12 and it does not necessarily require a quorum. We will now have the Clerk read the title of the bill.

This is regarding Resolution No. 060711. Resolution 18 authorizing the Council Committee on Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings regarding inmate overcrowding and security problems at the Philadelphia Prison System.

Thank you very much. In October of last year, this 3 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Committee held hearings regarding the dangerous conditions that exist in the City's prisons. During these hearings, many correctional officers testified regarding the horrendous conditions that exist in the City prisons. They indicated their fear for their lives and the lives of the inmates that resulted from the understaffing and the facilities' capacity. These security issues and overcrowding have created an environment where inmate crime, violence and riots are more likely to occur and have produced an unsafe and severely stressful workplace environment for City employees in our Prison System. Additionally, this environment has led to renewed litigation against the City regarding the violations of the constitutional rights of inmates. Like any other public service that protects our public safety, we need to ensure that correctional officers have a safe environment. Like the Humane 4 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Society, we have to protect inmates from unreasonable and inhumane conditions while they are paying their debt to society. The purpose of this hearing is to discuss and address some recent developments which have been brought to the public's attention regarding triple celling inmates at Riverside Correctional Facility, correctional officers' suspension for minor infractions and other issues that are exacerbating the already dangerous conditions. This follow-up hearing is for the purpose of updating Council, as well as the public, on these new and serious conditions that have been brought before this body. We apologize for the short notice of the hearing. Due to the fact that City Council will recess on Thursday until September, we thought we would try and hold this hearing today for this update so that we can hear some of the concerns that were brought before the 5 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Council the other day. So we didn't want to delay the discussion until September, and we may even continue it to September, but at least we wanted to have something on the record before we recessed. So we now thank you and we call on our first panel. I'd like to recognize Councilman Kenney is with us today and there will be other Councilmembers joining us soon. We have Panel 1. Would you please identify your name for the record and proceed to testify.

My name is Wendell Thompson. I'm the Business Agent of Local 159, District Council 33.

Go ahead. Introduce yourselves as you testify. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairman, Council, for having us here this morning. I'm here to testify this morning on the seriousness and danger 6 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 that is brewing in the Philadelphia Prison System. This started three years ago when it was warned what was going to happen in the system. It seemed like everybody turned a deaf ear to it. Right now we have an overcrowded population system that nobody is addressing. It seems like the Mayor has closed the door and turned his back on the correctional officers in the Philadelphia Prison System. You go back to October and I'm pretty sure you're still waiting on the 24-point plan that they said they had for y'all from the Managing Director, and I ask, have you gotten that plan yet. They have no idea what's going on. They trying to put the pressure on the union, when the fault is on the administration. It's their job to staff these prisons. Right now you have a jail system built for -- a new facility built for females that's overcrowded. They don't have the correct staff to run it. 7 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 We gave you a letter. I don't know if you got the letter from one inmate that we gave you that what's going on right now, but the bottom line, the jail was built 64 to one on the first floor. The second and third floor was two to 128. They're trying to open up these jails with less staff with these inmates living three in a cell. That's going to become a dangerous situation this summer. Our staff is down. Over the last two years, we done lost close to over 300 correction officers and they have not replaced any of them. There's something wrong where you have 650 correction officers take the Sheriff test and 139 process and go to the Police Department. It seems like when they talk about crime of Philadelphia, they talk about locking them up, what they supposed to do, but they forget about where they locking them up. People forget about the Prison System. 8 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 We, the men and women of the Philadelphia Prisons, the correction officers, are the ones that goes in every day, kiss our loved ones like everybody else, hoping we can go home. It's like we crying, we crying. We ask for help every day. It seems like nobody listens to us. It falls on deaf ears. So I'm here this morning before this panel to let you know you're either going to pay now or pay later, because something major is going to happen up in them prisons and you're going to wind up paying a lot of lawsuits, and some people going to wind up losing their lives. And I ask you, don't let that happen. Somebody got to take a major look at what's going on up there as far as the staffing and who is running it. For some reason, we're losing the prisons. We're losing. I get people come to work wanting to do their job and they get suspended, sent home when they feel as though their lives are put in 9 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 danger, because they want them to do something they won't do. You take any of the Wardens, the Commissioner and ask them to go open them houses up by theirselves for eight hours, see if they'll do it. But they want these officers to do it. If they don't do it, they send them home and suspend them. That's wrong. The bottom line is, safety is first for the inmates and the officers. And they're trying to find a way to cut corners, and that's not going to happen. You're supposed to have certain numbers to open up them housing areas. That's what you're supposed to have, them agreements we have, but they want to break them agreements. Now, if they do what they want to do and somebody get hurt, the first person going to get hurt behind everything, it may make a stand, it may lose his life, but then they want to discipline the correction officer on 10 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 something they wouldn't do. I come here to you this morning to ask you to put a stop to this. Find money for the Philadelphia Prison System.

Find money so we can get the correct staff up there. One of the first things we will ask you to do is ask the Mayor to waive the $35 fee that he charge for applications. It's something when you go from over 7,000 people taking the test to only 239 took the last correction officer test. Something is wrong with that picture, when you drop from 7,000 to 239. It's like I'm here to say, we, the men and women of the Philadelphia Prisons, are asking for help. They're crying for help. They're here this morning to testify to let you know how they feel, how their families feel and the help they need, and that's why we're here this morning. Thank you.

Thank you very much. 11 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Mr. North.

Good morning. I'd like to thank the Committee for holding these hearings today. My name is Lorenzo North. I'm President of Local 159. Thursday I addressed City Council and I talked about the conditions of one of the dangerous prisons on State Road, which is PICC. Today you will hear from officers that work them housing areas that work in the jail every day, and they will tell you the conditions where the inmates are locked down day after day. They're running activities short of staff, which put the inmates and the officers in danger every day. We had an inmate killed last year, and we still haven't found out who done it. So I'm asking you, once you hear the testimony today, to take action that will see that the prisons are secure and safe at all times. Thank you.

Thank you. 12 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Mr. Katz.

I'll be especially brief. The eloquence of the two Local 159 officials speaks well and goes to the heart of the problem. As someone who is a relatively newcomer to this type of difficulty, I have been amazed to see that everyone who has the responsibility is stumbling in circles trying to find a mutually acceptable way of allocating funds to increase the complement of security of correctional officers to the advantage of the security of the whole system. And basically as I understand it and as I see this problem, it is a failure by the administration of the system to be able to find a way of properly staffing the number of correctional officers and allocating the hours to those correctional officers that are necessary in order to have a civilized security system. As it now stands, you have this 13 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 fiscal fooling around going nowhere, to the detriment of the lives of both inmates and correctional officers and, in some instances, the possibility of the general public. I don't know how in the world it reached such a level of dilemma, but somebody somewhere is not doing their job. Somebody somewhere needs lessons in communication. And the conveying of obligations that City Council, the Office of the Mayor, the administration of the Prison System and those of us who are supposed to be alert to it; that is, Local 159 of AFSCME, don't seem to be doing what should be taking place. We are coming here to set this problem in your laps and to help you find a direction in which we want you to take the lead in saying to your other governmental units with whom you have to work in tandem, Here is the money that has to be allocated, here is the minimum, minimum security levels that the system 14 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 should anticipate, and do it not yesterday, not next month, not the month later, but immediately, immediately. Now, I don't know how procedurally that would work, but there are means by which City Council and committees such as yours who are put in the forefront to analyze and come back from the problem, there are means by which emergency funding, emergency allocation and emergency hiring can be obtained. You will hear from a number of dedicated men and women just how bad the extent of this problem is.

Thank you very much. Mr. North, have you heard anything about the 24-point plan that we discussed in October?

I think the last time I heard about it was here.

So nothing has come forward?

No. 15 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Do you remember it was with the Law Department --

Yes.

-- that discussed it?

Yes, and I haven't heard nothing since then.

Okay. Just refresh my memory in terms of that 24-point plan. It was supposed to be about reforming the entire system?

Well, the Commissioner testified that he had the 24-point plan, but we never seen it.

We'll wait until the Commissioner comes forward. Mr. Katz, we certainly hear what you're saying in terms of the finances, and this City Council has been aggressive in funding a number of the departments, particularly the Health Department when they testified last year because we did not have enough staff in 16 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the Health Department and health inspectors, and we appropriated money through the City Council, but the Mayor didn't spend it. So we have to have some agreement from the Administration, and that is the procedure. We can appropriate the money or we can put it in the budget, but the Mayor does not necessarily have to spend. It has to be based on what his priorities are in terms of where he wants to spend the money that's given to him through the budget process. I'm not sure that that will is to give the money to the Prison System.

We are confident that if you make the means available to the extent that the case has to be in a detailed fashion set forth before the Mayor to enlist his cooperation, that we can do that.

I don't believe that's going to be -- because I think if this was a major issue, knowing and understanding the overcrowding and 17 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the conditions that were discussed in October when these gentlemen and the staff members came to testify, we would have seen that there might have been some sensitivity to that and some effort to move to provide the funding to the prisons that would be needed, and that was not done when the budget was sent to us.

It has to be, in an emergency fashion, revisited. That's all I can suggest. Revisited, revisited now. And to the extent that any office of our division of government is unresponsive, such as if in fact the executive office is unresponsive, there are ways in which it can be, quote, explained, end quote, to the Mayor's Office and a sensitivity to the peril that's being created. It's real peril. As a relative, quote, outsider, end quote, I'm shocked at what is being conveyed to me and I'm shocked at what I see. It's not my body and my life that's 18 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 on the line there. It's those for whom I have a certain responsibility and you have a certain responsibility and the Mayor has a responsibility, and if we all recognize that responsibility, let's do the right thing, let's allocate the money, let's get it in there and let's properly staff the prisons.

Thank you. Councilman Kenney.

Thank you. What is the current status of any existing agreements or lawsuits on the federal level? I remember a number of years ago there was a federal judge who actually took control of the prison population and was directly involved in who got released and who didn't get released and dealing with the levels of prison population. What is the jurisdiction of the Federal Court currently as it relates to these issues?

I don't know that 19 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 anything has been done at this juncture.

No. I mean, this was a number of years ago when Judge Shapiro had extreme input into the Prison System. Why would you not just file an emergency petition with the Federal Court to make the same argument and then -- I mean, as Councilwoman Tasco says, this is a very strong mayoral form of government. We could allocate $50 million to the system and the Mayor would refuse to spend it. He can't ignore a federal judge or a federal court order. So why aren't you at that level asking for emergency injunctive relief?

Because it seems to us that the emergency injunctive relief forthcoming from the federal bench would probably be one of opening up the gates and kicking inmates out, and that doesn't make any sense. I don't know that the Federal Court has the jurisdiction -- has the power of effectively saying to City Council and to the Mayor, You have a 20 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 major problem here, now here's what you have to allocate, et cetera, et cetera.

But the original federal lawsuit was filed by people on behalf of the prison inmates.

That's right.

You should be filing something on behalf of the prison guards.

We may well do that.

But I think if you're looking for a jurisdiction that's going to be able to go directly to the issue and direct City officials to do certain things, it's more likely the federal bench than it's going to be the Mayor's Office.

Well, if that could effectively be done -- and legally I have some reservations as to the power of the Federal Courts to go to the type of details that are necessary -- that would be fine and it would take some time. However, what can really be done is a 21 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 recognition of the problems that beset this community and this system by a joinder of City Council and the Mayor. We're here before the body of City Council.

And you have an ear here and you have a desire to be cooperative here. Nothing against the Mayor personally, but I know that when he sets his mind to something, he's not going to change it, and with few months left in his term, he's probably not going to budge. So rather than -- and I don't mind sitting here hearing this. I think it's important that we and the press know what's going on and it's continually promulgated, but if you think you're going to leave here today and the two of us are going to convince the guy on the second floor to change his mind, it's not going to happen between now and January. And I'm not saying that as a cop-out; I'm telling you that's what has been our 22 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 experience in the past eight years.

Mr. Kenney, could I answer that, what you were looking for?

Yes.

What you talking about when Justice Perrill had power over the Prison System, back in '93, I think it was, or '94, Mayor Rendell and City Council President John Street at the time got the judge persuaded how they could control the Prison System. She released it back to them.

Correct.

And ever since they had it back, Philadelphia City had it, it has become a disaster. They gave them -- I'm just telling you what happened. They gave them the power back to the City.

And you'll get no argument from me, and you're there on the ground and you see it every day and I don't doubt your word. All I'm saying is, if you're looking for the more direct way in which to approach this, 23 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 this is important, but in the end, you're not going to probably get any relief from the second floor until there's another Mayor, which will be January '08.

Well, between now and then, we have a crisis on our hands.

I'm not discounting -- that's why I'm wondering why you're not in front of a federal judge seeing whether or not you can effect the situation through a federal court order.

Because, frankly, it may have been overly naive on our part, but we are convinced or were convinced -- and I'm beginning to scratch my head as to whether or not we are being too optimistic. We were convinced that if we take our plate to City Council and show City Council the plate and the problem and gain a receptive set of recommendations and a receptive set of potential legislation from City Council 24 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 and shove that under the Mayor's nose, that we can induce the Mayor to be a cooperative participant.

That's, I think, an incorrect strategy.

And that can be done much more quickly --

But the issue for us, remember, is that we have Thursday -- we amended the bill, as you saw, on last Thursday to deal with the School District and an extra $10 million that's required to hopefully keep some of our young people out of having to come in contact with you later in life, but if we amend the bill again this week and we'll have to have an extra session of Council, which we can't guarantee we can get, even if we do that and pass that appropriation, how do you get him to spend it?

We'll do our best to deal with that with some of the realities of life. 25 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Okay.

But right now we're here asking for your help.

And I think it's important that you are here and I think it's important that we know the conditions and the public knows the conditions, but if you're looking for a direct result in getting this fixed, it's not going to come out of the second floor until January '08.

Well, I should hope that Council can take the first step enabling us within a matter of weeks to go to the Mayor and I --

One of the things I would have hoped, we might have had the request earlier during the budget process in terms of -- what we need to know is what is the ideal amount of money that you need, what is it that you need, how many additional employees do you need, what does it take to run the ideal -- well, it won't be ideal given 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 overcrowding, but in terms of the number of officers you need to provide for the staffing, what would the cost be for that. There has to be a figure. You want us to draft a figure? I mean, how much money are you requesting and how much would you need to hire additional employees? Those are the things that also have to be discussed.

There's no doubt in my mind that a general figure, a general reasonable figure, can be achieved jointly with the administration of the prison and the administration of the correctional officers, Local 159, and that can be done in a matter of a day or two.

Mr. North, you don't have any idea how much money you need to hire additional people, and can that be done in a day or two?

First of all, ma'am, we done lost over 300 on the last two years. 27 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

But when you come to us to talk to us about dollars, you have to give us some figures and you have to tell us what that figure buys. I understand and I am sensitive to the discussion here, but at the end of the day, we need to know what is the bottom line and what would you ask Council to pay for. So if you're asking us to provide funding for so many staff members, then we have to know what that means in terms of dollars and cents.

We will have a conservative figure in your hands tomorrow.

But that doesn't mean that it's going to get done, is what Councilman Kenney is saying. We can appropriate the money. People can come back here for a special session, which I doubt Council will do, and then the Mayor will not spend the money. The Mayor will not spend the money, because 28 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the priority, as I see it -- and this is only my personal view -- has not been to address the overcrowding in the prison. If so, some of the other requests that we have received in this Council for expenditures of funds from the General Fund would not come forth and that money could have been redirected to the prisons. So it's a matter of trying -- have you had a discussion with the Mayor about this?

I beg your pardon?

Have you had a discussion with the Mayor about the overcrowding?

I personally haven't.

Have you all had any discussion with the Mayor at all about the overcrowding?

Yes.

And what's his response? 29 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Save it for the next Mayor.

Beg your pardon?

Save it for the next Mayor.

Is that what he said?

Yes.

Well, I am confident that we can revisit, maybe not successfully, but armed with the might that is given to us by virtue of a responsive City Council and a figure, that we can revisit the Mayor prior to the time he abandons responsibility, and all we're asking for is the opportunity to do that.

Thank you very much. Let us hear from the next panel. You won't go any place, will you?

No. 24

Thank you. Saliym Hakiym, Natalie Mims and 30 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Gerald Carter. Would you come this way, please. Good morning. (Good morning.)

Would you please begin. Please state your name for the record and begin your testimony.

Good morning. Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen of the Council, good morning. I would first like to thank you all for your time and attention in regards to the matter at hand, the ever-rising number of female inmates --

What is your name? You have to identify yourself.

I apologize. My name is Natalie Mims, correctional officer.

Go ahead.

I apologize. The ever-rising number of 31 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 female inmates and the dire need for the Philadelphia Prison System to configurate a solution that will enable all the staff to adhere to the PPS mission, which is to provide a safe and secured environment for both staff and detained or sentenced inmates. I, Correctional Officer Mims, am currently assigned at RCF, where the proposed increased ratio, which was at one time due to past practice 64 inmates to one CO, would be 99 inmates to one CO. I respectfully and most humbly --

Excuse me, please. Would you please read that again and go slowly so we can hear. Our ears don't hear that fast.

I apologize.

Because you're citing some information that we need to hear. So please read a little more slowly.

Shall I start over?

Yes. You 32 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 don't have to thank us again.

The ever-rising number of female inmates and the dire need for the Philadelphia Prison System to configurate a solution that will enable all staff to adhere to the PPS mission, which is to provide a safe and secured environment for both staff and detained or sentenced inmates. I, Correctional Officer Mims, am currently assigned at RCF, where the proposed increase ratio, which is now at -- which was at one time due to past practice 64 inmates to one CO, will be increased 99 inmates to one CO. I respectfully and most humbly speak in representation of the officers at RCF and would like to first bring to our Commissioner's, the Honorable Leon King, Esquire's, attention that we would much rather deal with our present dilemma, as with the Philadelphia Police Department, as well as the Philadelphia Fire Department in an in-house formality. 33 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Therefore, we request of the Commissioner a conference with a panel with five correctional officers from RCF in an effort to remedy this threatening epidemic. We acknowledge the fact that our President is in a moment of mourning and that the Business Agent is the elected mediator for such crisis, but to our despair, we have yet to hear from him and are left to assume that it's possible our concerns are not being relayed as we so desire them, which is why we have taken such extreme measures by requesting this most needed and overdue conference with the Honorable Commissioner King in an attempt to adduce the many possible hazards in the event that the proposed ratio increase is implemented. We make this request with no 22 intentions to forfeit our right to be heard by the Council if for some reason a mutual agreement cannot be concluded from the requested conference. For now, we 34 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 simply ask that all avenues of resolution 3 be explored by the Philadelphia Prison System before the next level of resolve be utilized. Again, on behalf of the correctional officers at RCF, I thank you for your time and I'm looking forward to working hand in hand with our Honorable Commissioner.

Thank you. Just let me ask you a question. I have one. You said you had 64 inmates to one correctional officer?

Past practice.

And is that the ideal complement? What would be the, I guess, normal average complement in most prisons that would be the ideal?

For the past practice, it has proven to be just enough, safe enough, we all go home at night.

Sixty-four to one? 35 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Sixty-four to one. The proposed increase would be 99 inmates to one CO. And maybe we're under the assumption that because it's female inmates --

That they're not as violent?

-- they're not dangerous, but I would like to, from my own personal experience, I would like to say, we're dealing with females that will carry a child, give birth to a child and then kill it. We're not asking for the unrealistic. Everybody wants to work. Everybody wants to provide for their children and not be on the other side of the Prison System. Therefore, we're just asking of our Commissioner to hear us out and maybe we all can work together.

Thank you. Thank you. Next?

My name is Saliym 36 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Hakiym and I'm a Union Delegate for Local 159 and presently I'm --

Would you pull the microphone closer and speak slowly.

And presently I'm at Riverside Correctional Facility, which we call RCF. One of the main problems that we see that my membership tells me with the increase of inmates, the ratio of inmates to our officers, is that the increase of arguments. Even though we can handle that ratio that we once had at 64 to one that she just mentioned, when I came into the system, the ratio from the court decree was 57 to one, and once they opened up CFCF, we went into an agreement with the administration to increase it because of how they had constructed CFCF, and that brought the ratio up to 64 to one. And from that, anything that was built since CFCF was constructed, the ratio was supposed to be maintained. 37 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Approximately two, maybe two and a half years ago, they opened up what we called multi-purpose rooms at RCF.

Opened up what?

Multi-purpose rooms. It's just a room, but they just house inmates. They put six inmates in the room. You really can't secure that room, especially for people that work the 11:00 to 7:00 shift. So that means the inmates can just walk around all the time. And I know it's a failed policy when you put people in rooms that wasn't built for them, because there's no 17 running water or anything like that. Approximately five years ago when I was working at CFCF, they instituted another failed policy of overburdening the COs. And I was working Bravo one-three, which is quarantine, and they put bunk beds down there in the dayroom, which means that there was 20 inmates that was running around all the 38 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 time. And from that, those that was housed in the cells could not come out. And this one particular incident, I got into an altercation with one of the inmates and I broke my hand. My hand was all pinned up, and it was because of people that was on that unit that was in the dayroom. Now, the inmate that came out that I had the altercation with, he refused to get back into his cell. And I understood why after he said he wasn't going back in, and the reason why he didn't want to go back in the cell, because he said he was locked down all day for something that he didn't even do. He was already locked up. So he would rather go to the hold. At least he would come out for two hours a day instead of just coming out for medication or picking up his tray. So now we're back to that same juncture again, but only this time I'm with the females. The females have 39 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 special needs, and when I seen those numbers before for 57 to one that was for that court decree, when we agreed to the 64 to one, it didn't have anything to do with gender specific, because when you speak about officers, it's not gender specific. It is not. So here we are again. Are those inmates pleased with what's happening when you have three in a cell? You can look at the cells, and I wish you guys would come up there and see the cells sometime. They have two to a cell. They say that's what they built it for, but if you looked at it, you will see that it was only really designed for one person. Now they have three. They have someone that's sleeping what we call "boats," on the floor. For females -- it's worse enough for a man, but for a female. I'm looking at this and she's sleeping by a toilet. We still have the same amount of supplies that we once had. For 40 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 instance, if it's two females in a cell, they get two rolls of toilet paper. Sometimes the administration think they're using too much. I don't know. I'm not a female, but I do know y'all when you go to the bathroom, you use more than what a man would use. All these supplies, for their pads, they don't have enough pads for the women. This Warden and the one that I had worked under before he came here, they make decisions, but it's basically decisions that has already been approved for them to make. If they're able or we're able to make decisions, because they are the Wardens to run their jails, I think we would do a little bit more, a little bit better than what we're doing right now. I stand roll call sometimes. I hear names called for different posts, and I never see that person again. I hear the name, but I never see that person at the post. Or if they do happen 41 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 to show up, they're pulled, for whatever reason. So what I'm asking is, these policies that they're putting in place, it's basically, from my opinion, for those who haven't done the job or have been so far removed from the job that they're not concerned about our safety. I know we're talking about staffing, but approximately two weeks ago on a unit that had over 150 people, it had three officers on there. Whatever happened, I can't really say, but they pulled the third officer.

Was it a little better for those officers? Yes. Officers have a lot of stress in their life. We don't talk about it, but it's there. I know they get consultants and they come in and they make their recommendations, but you have all the experts you need right here in the system that's there. Right now I work with colleges, chapters, social workers. I never worked with them 42 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 before, but I have since they have put me here at RCF. I've talked to them. I asked them what do they think is wrong. Well, their workload has increased, too. It's not just us. It's theirs, too. Medical's workload has increased. People that's in quarantine, they slip through. How do I know? Because I'm working up there with the social workers, because they ask me to call these certain inmates down to them. They should never have went to the units. They should have stayed in quarantine.

Excuse me a minute. I'm sorry. We just realized we didn't have a stenographer. But it's being taped. It's being recorded. Your testimony is being recorded. It just kind of threw me off there for a minute. Would you continue, please.

So I think since those that are calling the shots or corrections haven't done the job or have 43 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 been so far removed from the job, that we have to come to people like you for some sort of relief. We're not asking that anyone else come in and do the job for us. We're not asking for that. We just need some relief that we can continue to do our job and do the job safely. One other thing that I would like to say and I have always said this since I found out from working at CFCF, at one time we was all -- when I say "all," I'm speaking about all the facilities. When we use our walkies, we all heard everybody. If there was an incident that was happening and I needed assistance and I was working at CFCF or right now if I'm working at RCF, someone at another facility can step on that transmission of mine's, right, and that is precious time. I think that -- and they going to say it's money, but I think we all can have our own frequency. It's okay for all the center controls to hear 44 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 everything, and I think they should. CFCF has its own frequency, because everybody was stepping on everyone and you couldn't really get the help. If they did it for CFCF after it was constructed, they can do it for this one, too.

Madam Chair, just one question on the frequency issue. Are you saying that you're on the normal City municipal band or you have your own --

We have a band.

Who steps on your frequency?

The rest of the facilities. We have PICC, DC --

Are all on the same band?

They're all on the same band, and I don't understand that.

But CFCF is on a separate band? 45 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Is on a separate. But it wasn't like that when they first constructed it. They found out that there was a problem, so they constructed it at CFCF.

So you're telling me that an officer at Riverside would have the transmission stepped on from PICC?

Yes. And I'm going to say this, too: If the three of us are partners at this time, only one of us would have a walkie anyway. So if one of us take a tour on the other side of the unit, if something was occurring, that person who didn't have the walkie, they're going to be out of luck. They're going to be in big trouble. And this is every day.

So in a team of three, there's only one walkie-talkie?

Even if it was just a team of two, it still could just 46 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 be one walkie. We need equipment.

All right. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Could you please state your name, sir, and offer your testimony.

Good morning. My name is Gerald Carter, officer of RCF. Basically, I'm here to state more so what my counterparts are talking about in regards to safety of the jails. Currently, I can speak for RCF, because that's the jail I currently work at. I feel that right now that the conditions are unsafe as far as the officers go, as far as the census of the jail, as far as the overcrowdedness where you have two officers and you have 150-some-odd inmates. I feel as though it is somewhat unsafe. And then there are times where the officers -- where if you have two officers, then you have two officers and two rovers or escorts, so forth, to run 47 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the floor, they'll pull the escort or move an officer off the block and then have one escort and the center to open the floor up, which I feel is unsafe. Because say if you have two floors or two units of 150-some inmates, if you have two officers and may have one rover and a fight breaks out on one of these units, the officers are at risk, because that rover can't run on both units to cover those officers. And that's what our rovers do, they have to be that second eye or that third eye for the officers. Then there are officers that are looking out for the safety. We come to work for our safety. Our officers, we all come to work to take care of our family and for safety. We don't come to work to be harassed or be beaten up or so forth, and I feel as though I think what the Prison System -- they have taken the jails lightly, but I pretty much think they taken our staff, the female jails, more lightly than the other jails because 48 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 they are females, and I think they don't think these females can do the damage that the men can do, where I witnessed females attacking officers, whether they be male or female, these female inmates. And I think all the officers, all we're asking for is safety. We come to work, take our families, and we're safe and we can go home to our families. And I think as far as if the Commissioner and the Wardens and so forth would look at that and see where we're coming from, they would understand it better. And like they said, we're the real officers that work in these blocks. We see what these inmates do day-to-day. They don't work the block or they don't come to see the blocks or actually take a tour of the blocks like we see it. So when we're taking the risks, I don't think they understand quite what we're going through, and I think that on some points we're underhanded on demand, we're getting suspended if we don't open a 49 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 block up because there's two officers or one officer to all these inmates, we're shorthanded. So if we don't open a block up, then we'll get suspended and without pay and so forth. Then we have to go through all these allegations to get our jobs back or to get back to work, where as though that's from us taking our families, all because we're looking out for our safety, and I don't think that's fair. All we're asking for is the manpower to take -- to run these blocks or to run these units, really to run this jail. That's any jail, not just RCF, all the jails. All we're asking for is the manpower to run these units and run this jail. And I think if they look at it from that standpoint of what we're asking, the problem could reduce itself. I'm not saying it would go away, but I think it would maybe reduce itself. Because at one time, like I said, I witnessed where they had three officers 50 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 to a block before the jail got to the census where it is at now. And now it's getting more crowded, but they're not adding the other officer now.

How many officers are on a block?

Two.

How many rovers are there per officer?

It's usually two rovers, two escorts.

Two rovers per one officer?

No. It's two rovers per floor.

Two rovers per floor.

Yes.

And how many officers are on each floor?

Two officers on each unit and two rovers. About five or six officers.

So 51 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 conceivably you have five officers for every two rovers?

No. It's two officers to a unit. It's two units on each floor.

Two units per floor.

On the second and third floor, it's two units.

So that's the norm? What you just described is the norm, is what's normal?

Basically, yeah.

So what's been the change?

The jail got overcrowded and there's still two officers on the units.

So the number of inmates has increased, but the manpower for coverage on any two units has not?

Right. That I witnessed, yes. 52 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Whose judgment is it, whose call is it to open up a block? And I'm referring there you said that there's suspensions. So then who makes the call to open up a block or not?

I mean, the Shift Commander.

Forgive me?

The Shift Commander.

So the Shift Commander may be making the decision, but yet the officer is suspended? I'm trying to make the connect between the suspension --

Well, in the instance where the blocks -- well, I can say from my experience where the block wasn't opened up, I had a Lieutenant that wanted me to open a block up. It wasn't a Shift Commander. It was a Lieutenant that asked me to open a unit up that I 53 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 was reprimanded with.

And when you declined, that's when the suspension happens?

Yes.

Speak to me about the training of parole officers, prison officers. Talk to me about the training, because that can be tied to the level of vulnerability one may feel. So talk to me about the training. How long is it? What does it involve? Training of prison officers.

Well, their training is about ten weeks. It's basically training on the policies, handling the fire weapons. There's fire weapon training. You get how to handle certain situations as far as disciplinary or --

Disciplinary circumstances of inmates?

Yes.

So is 54 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 there any training given to under what circumstance one needs to make a judgment about whether or not to open up a block?

You mean as far as an officer opening a block up?

Forgive me? I can't hear you.

You mean as far as a question for us where an officer open a block up?

Yes. When an officer has to make the judgment call that it is best --

That's for the officer that go to the supervisor for a supervisor to make that decision.

All right. Tell us what is working currently.

Currently, it was the three officers to a block and three rovers.

Okay, then. I'll rest my questioning there. Chairwoman Tasco. 55 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Thank you very much. We're going to ask you to remain, because we may call you back for some questions. The Councilwoman may have some more, but we need to call the Commissioner because he has a time constraint, and I want him to answer a lot of the questions. This testimony is nothing new. He had this testimony in October, so we want to hear from him this morning -- this afternoon in terms of what changes have been made. So don't leave. We may call you back. Don't go.

Can I respond to a question?

No, you may not.

But I wasn't prepared to answer, but I have the answer.

Would you wait, please, until your turn. 56 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Okay.

Thank you.

At some point when you're ready for it --

Yes. We'll call you back. Thank you. Good afternoon. COMMISSIONER KING: Good afternoon. I have a short prepared statement that I'm going to read. It shouldn't take me too long. Is that all right?

All right. Thank you. COMMISSIONER KING: Good morning, Councilwoman Tasco and members of the Committee for Public Health and Human Services. My name is Leon King and I'm the Commissioner of the Philadelphia Prison System appointed by Mayor Street in 2002. I am here to offer continuing testimony in regard to City Council Resolution 060711. I appreciate your 57 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 giving me the opportunity to discuss with you the issues of importance to the City of Philadelphia and to the Philadelphia Prison System and its employees. The Prison System continues to work on addressing our population challenges utilizing the resources over which we have authority. Our efforts have been ongoing before and after our last appearance at City Council. Those challenges are readily apparent; the solutions less so. Our present overall census is 8,946 as of midnight last night. This number includes 273 inmates who are housed out of county. That is close to the record of 8,997 set just last month. In order to house that many inmates, there are 200 triple cells at the House of Correction, a current capacity to triple 192 cells at CFCF in intake housing and a current capacity to triple cell 102 cells at the Riverside Correctional Facility. We anticipate a continued 58 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 increase in the inmate population, and I will summarize the efforts we have been making to meet this challenge. I will then address what has happened between PPS administration and District Council 33, Local 159 regarding the current situation with RCF. First, we at the prison have continued to speak with the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and fully support City Solicitor Romulo Diaz, who chairs those meetings, and work with him to identify and implement measures that will help reduce the inmate population at the PPS. These solutions must come from our partners in the criminal justice system. The Defender's Office continues its efforts to file early parole petitions, and in order to achieve maximum efficiency, the Prison System has allocated two additional social workers who can be dedicated solely to the task of ensuring that the adjustment summaries 59 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 necessary for early parole petitions are completed in the timeliest manner. Another initiative to increase efficiency in release is to have a bail office located at the Prison System. The current method for processing bail to secure release of arrestees is time consuming and puts unnecessary burdens on family and friends who want to bail their loved ones out. It also prolongs their stay in the jail, which is something we want to reduce. A bail office at the Prison System, which is in the midst of being initiated, will hopefully speed up the process of arrestees being released on bail. The court system has also recently announced that they will begin accepting bail by credit card. Otherwise, the Prison System is doing everything possible to stretch the capacity through the use of contracted satellite facilities. The current operating capacity of the Prison System using all satellites is as follows: We 60 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 start off with the base number of 8,810. With the further use of 192 "blue boats" in the CFCF intake areas brings our number to 9,002. We have 150 contracted beds, with 135 being used as of June in 7 Monmouth County, New Jersey, bringing our number to 9,152. We also have a contractual relationship that has not been formalized to writing yet with Lehigh County on an as-available basis for both male and female inmates, and as of June 7, we had 33 inmates, 28 males and five females at that location. Lastly, we have a contract with Liberty Management located at 10th and Lehigh that we just opened in the last month, bringing our capacity up to 9,282, and we currently have around 74 inmates at that location, 53 males and females.

There 21 is also a contingency to add another hundred or so "blue boats" or triples at CFCF to help us deal with the population over the summer and get us up above the 9,200 number. 61 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 The following complications regarding the available beds at our contracted facilities must also be emphasized. First, both the Monmouth and Lehigh County contracts are based on available beds. There is no guarantee at either facility that Philadelphia will be able to use any of the beds, meaning if the people who run those facilities decide they need the space, they give us certain notice and we would have to leave. Further, the beds to be used at our Liberty Management and Coleman Center facilities are based on inmate classification; in other words, minimum, and community-level inmates can be held there, and we only have so many of those to spread around. To say that all of the above creates a great operational strain is an understatement. As stated at the outset, we are not going to make a prediction, but we are prepared for as many as 9,200 inmates this summer. Therefore, any 62 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 number beyond 9,282 will cause more drastic operational measures such as additional triple cells I mentioned at CFCF. Since May, we have come closer to 9,000 inmates each weekend. I will now address the situation at the Riverside Correctional Facility, which opened in 2004. RCF is our primary holding facility for women. The design capacity for RCF is 768. And I might -- I'm just going to backtrack a little in the testimony. It's traditional in the corrections field and for every jail, I think, we've opened on State Road, you design it for a certain amount of people and by the time you open it, you have more. So in 2004 when we opened RCF with a capacity of 768, in the prior years we topped 950 women. So before the jail opened, it was overcrowded, so to speak.

Could I just ask quickly, why was it designed that way? We know that it's going to 63 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 take X number of months to design and construct a facility, and if we know kind of extrapolating forward that the 768 is going to be 900, why didn't we just design it for the 900 or a thousand? COMMISSIONER KING: Because the way these things operate is, people sit down, they plan the facility, and then the time that it takes one to negotiate the site, make sure everybody is okay with the site, hire the contractors, all the financial changes the City goes through, we end up --

But you also, I think, in your testimony, unless I'm incorrectly understanding it, you said it's understood within the system that traditionally there's going to be -- it's like when they opened the Schuylkill Expressway, it was under capacity --or over capacity by that time they opened it. Don't we know that with the 24-month or 30-month design and 64 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 construction process period that it's going to be 900, not 768? COMMISSIONER KING: We know that, but it's just the way -- I don't know what word I want to use, but the way all the differing parties, organizations work, by the end there's going to be budgetary issues, there's going to be concerns from -- that have to be taken into account and it just ends up happening that way.

Again, and it's water under the bridge because the facility is built, but if we know there's going to be more inmates that need to go in there when we design it, we should design it appropriately and not -- COMMISSIONER KING: I mean, the only thing I would say, for example, if you take the three to four percent increase that we have traditionally in the prisons and you projected it for ten years, you could take a reasonable estimate that we would need, in order 65 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 just to keep up with that, not to mention all the police we're going to hire, et cetera, we need 4,000 beds in the next ten years.

Well, I think there comes a point in time when something is going to change that. It's not going to continue -- I'm talking about going forward over 24, 30 months, not ten years. I mean, if we know there's going to be too many people for the facility, why are we designing them smaller? I guess --

How did you come to 764? I mean, why was that the magic number? COMMISSIONER KING: I don't remember what the magic number was. That ended up being the magic number based on the money that we had and the resources that we had to spend at the time we got the permission to go forward. And the only point I was making, Councilman, is that the estimate 66 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 we did for a 1,500-bed facility is $190 million. You have to take that, as I understand the process, and you put it into all the other priorities that the City has, and it may come out that we can only afford a thousand bed facility and that's what we built. I mean, that's just the reality of it.

Madam Chair, point of information along the same lines.

Councilman, would you identify yourself. We have a tape recorder. We don't have a stenographer.

Councilman Juan Ramos. Could it have been that the number 768 was actually a greater number, but then when it was time to crunch the numbers and decide on the money, that the only thing you can afford to build was enough for 768 inmates? COMMISSIONER KING: That is -- 67 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 I wasn't there for all that minutia, but that is my understanding of what often happens. You have to -- you're only able to use the resources that you have. And I think as the Chief of Staff testified when she was here for the budget, the City has a lot of priorities and they get mixed in and people make decisions on what gets spent.

It doesn't seem the prison is the -- COMMISSIONER KING: Excuse me?

It doesn't seem the prisons are a priority. COMMISSIONER KING: Well, no 17 one wants -- even if you said, Commissioner, you have as much money as you want to build a prison as big as you want, then I have to find a neighborhood that would like to have that prison, and then we have to deal with the bidding and all that. No one wants a jail. I don't think that's the answer. But I just want to finish real 68 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 quickly. Design capacity of RCF is 768. As of June 7, 2007, the census at RCF stood at 811. So we were over the design capacity, and it's been that way for a while. You heard the officer talk about the rooms where four people are. Those are rooms that were not designed for inmates, but we've had to put inmates there. We were at this number even after using every other possible area to house female inmates. We have 125 inmates at a facility next to Holmesburg called the Cannery, and based on the initiation of recent contracts with Liberty Management and Lehigh County, we have female inmates at Liberty and 20 five inmates in Lehigh County. 21 Still with all of the above, we had to start triple celling at RCF. Prior to implementing triple cells, we contacted the union about our plans, and the union requested that we adhere to the 69 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 staff ratios at CFCF until we all had a chance to sit down and discuss the issue. I agreed to that. A meeting was scheduled with the union for the next Wednesday, and again in an act of good faith, we adhered to the union -- the staffing ratios the union thought that we should. The scheduled meeting was cancelled by the union the afternoon before the meeting began, and until Friday, no one responded to our attempts to reschedule this meeting. As a result, the PPS instituted staffing levels we felt were appropriate. This morning we did have a chance to meet. We requested a meeting and are waiting for a briefing with that. And I want to be clear, there is no agreement that states the inmate-to-staff ratio at RCF or CFCF. The union has claimed that the current operational ratio at CFCF of one officer per 64 inmates applies to RCF. It does not. The union has claimed that an 70 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 agreement worked out with former Superintendent David Owens in the 1980s has precedence. It does not. Every jail is different -- and you're welcome -- we welcome visitors at the prison if you'd like to come up and take a look -- is different in design, technical support and the type of inmate that is housed there. There is no single staffing formula that applies to every facility, and we have six facilities and three satellites. The administration is obligated to consider factors of design, technology and risk to deploy staff in a manner that will maintain a safe and secure environment for staff and inmates and allow us to deploy staff more intensely in those close custody jails that require closer supervision. This is not one size fits all. I have addressed above, as much as possible, the exhaustive operational burdens and needs that the Prison System will be incurring in the coming months. 71 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 The Prison System will continue to do everything in its power to deal with this ongoing problem as best as possible in a proactive manner. We are always open to issues, discussing issues, with the union, but it is a two-way street. However, I again close by emphasizing that the problems of the continually rising population will not even begin to be solved until more intense efforts are made by the criminal justice system as a whole to work together in addressing those causes.

Thank you very much. Let me just ask a couple of questions. All of the candidates for Mayor are calling for more police officers, which would mean more arrests and convictions and more inmates in our system. Have you heard any discussion about increasing the staffing levels at the prison? COMMISSIONER KING: In 72 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 connection to that, no, but there was some testimony earlier about our staffing challenges and we do have some -- our last crop of CO candidates, there was -- I don't know what happened, but a lot of them failed the psychological exam back in October after we testified and we really didn't get anybody off the last list that was out. So we currently have a class of 43. I do have authorization from the Administration to hire more COs, over 100 I have the authorization.

How many do you need? What would you need in terms of -- COMMISSIONER KING: I need closer to 250, but the problem --

250 what? COMMISSIONER KING: Extra. Right now we're at about 1,725 and I think the staffing plan calls for 1,950 or something like that. Am I correct? So that's the difference that 73 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 we need. So what we have done is, since we had the problem with that prior list, we met with the Personnel Director, we met with the Managing Director, because what was happening was, we'd get a list, the list would be exhausted, we'd have to implement the recruitment team. We'd have a month to run out before the list closed. We'd do that. So now we have continuous recruiting. So that as soon as Personnel gets enough people who have paid the money for the application, they do a test and we'll get a class. So the goal is to hire as many as we can cram into the Training Academy over the summer. The issue is that the training period is 12 weeks. So if today I hired 150, we were able to get them through the process, we wouldn't have them online for another 12 weeks. And I know that they just gave a test, am I correct -- two Saturdays ago they gave a new test for COs. So we're looking for them to come through. 74 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 So we're trying to keep up with the work that we have to do now, and the union and the officers and I myself are concerned about the fact that the staffing is not where we want it to be, but we're no different -- maybe a little bit different. In my discussions with Commissioner Ayers and people in the Police Department, we're all having trouble recruiting. So we are redoubling our efforts and trying to be strategic about getting out there everywhere we can. We have a full-time recruitment unit out. So in that context, we're doing what we can do to get more officers and we recognize the need. In the context of hiring more police, no, I haven't heard any --

What are the impediments to recruitment? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, the anecdotal conversation, things that I'm hearing from my staff, from people in the 75 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Fire Department, a lot of it has to do with the fact that people, for example, when you tell them that you can't smoke marijuana and work for the prisons, they have a problem with that. They don't want to sign up to do that. There's a rigorous background check.

Who does the recruitment? COMMISSIONER KING: We have prison COs, correctional officers, social workers and maintenance --

So they're getting this information from people that they talk to about becoming correctional officers? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes. The recruitment unit --

The responses? COMMISSIONER KING: Yeah. They're out full time in the neighborhoods and places where people are looking for jobs trying to recruit folks. 76 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Councilman Kenney.

Thank you. Have you requested a pre-employment residency requirement waiver from the Civil Service Commission? COMMISSIONER KING: No. 9

Why? COMMISSIONER KING: That's not something the Administration wants to do, as I understand it.

So we can't find the people we need and we're going to continue on -- I'm just talking rhetorically to you. I don't need you to answer. But we're going to continue the process which is not serving us well rather than trying to branch out into other areas where we may have people coming from the military, coming from other areas that are trained, that are disciplined and understand the paramilitary life of these types of jobs and we're going to continue to ask guys 77 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 if they want to stop smoking pot? I mean -- COMMISSIONER KING: Councilman, I agree --

Not that he supports the -- COMMISSIONER KING: No. I think we've tweaked it so we're out there being more strategic about where we go, and I told the recruitment unit I specifically want them to contact people in the armed forces, because there are people who are from Philadelphia who will be coming back looking for work, and we're trying to connect with those people. I talked to the Personnel Director about as long as they do the residency thing, if they have been in the military and they do have a background or have worked in corrections, how do you explain that to people and explain how that will help them, and they may have to come to the prison and go through the Training Academy for 12 weeks, but on 78 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 week 13, they're eligible to take the Sergeant's test or the Lieutenant's test. So we're trying to work within the confines of that. We have to do it a little bit -- it's not exactly the same.

I have given this example before, and I know you're not in control of this, but I have gone to a Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park and seen an NYPD recruiting van -- COMMISSIONER KING: I've seen them, too.

-- parked on the sidewalk trying to recruit people from our city to come up there. So I will send a letter to the Mayor again asking for that consideration, because I think if this is that a crisis situation, we need to kind of change things a little bit. We've done it with the School District. We can do it here as needed. If we don't want to do an overall blanket policy of eliminating the pre-employment residency 79 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 requirement, we should at least be able to do it in crisis. It seems like there's one. COMMISSIONER KING: The other hindrance we have, most people have no 7 idea, they have bad pre-conceived notions about what correctional officers do. I was in the hardware store in Lafayette Hill and I had my prison T-shirt on or whatever it was and they said, Oh, you work at the prison? I said, Yes. I said, We're recruiting. He says, Oh, what, do I come up and beat people down? I mean, this is what the public's view of us is, and that's part of what the recruitment team is out there trying to put a positive light. We've got a whole new section on our web and booklets, and we're trying to do a sort of media thing to make people understand that it's not -- that's not what we do and it's really more 80 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 sophisticated than that.

You had mentioned earlier in your testimony that there were some arrangements with Lehigh County and Monmouth County. COMMISSIONER KING: Yes.

Do you have any similar arrangements or have pursued similar arrangements with the state correctional system in Pennsylvania? COMMISSIONER KING: We have 90 inmates up at Camp Hill. So they are cooperating with us in that regard.

I understand that maybe anecdotal -- I don't know if it's accurate or not, but Chester apparently is not anywhere near capacity, the state correctional facility there, and that's a pretty short distance to be able to maybe have some synergy with that facility. COMMISSIONER KING: I haven't heard about that one, but I will check into it. 81 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Thank you.

Councilwoman Brown.

Yes. Just a couple of follow-up questions regarding your recruitment challenges. What are the minimum age requirements? COMMISSIONER KING: I believe you have to be -- 19, and you have to 12 have a GED and a driver's license. 13

What are 14 the linkages with CCP for young people 15 who want to major in criminal justice and 16 start with an Associate Degree? 17 COMMISSIONER KING: I know that 18 the recruitment unit has touched base 19 with CCP. They started going over there 20 with the Fire Department and the Police Department. My anecdotal conversations with Commissioner Ayers tells me that CCP is a good place to recruit. It's where the Fire Department says they get their best recruits from CCP. So we are at CCP 82 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 and we've just in the last month or two, since we've got the recruitment unit up, going to places like CCP and trying to get people to come into corrections. And part of the challenge also is, if you go on the City's website -- that's why we updated ours -- and you go, I want to be a CO, it says you start off at 32,000, I think it is, and then 50 years later when you're done, you're only making 38. So who would want to take that as sort of a lifetime thing? So we've tried to update the website, so when you go to our website, you see that there's career advancement. You can be a Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Warden, whatever it is.

Are you on the City's channel, 63, 64, that talks about various City departments? COMMISSIONER KING: I don't know. I'd have to check on that.

I think that would be a good place. People do 83 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 flip to that channel every now and then and they do listen to watch City Council on Thursdays, and public meetings are there and other programs are provided on that channel as a means to recruit. Now, is there any -- if you hire 43 people, how will that alleviate this -- help you with your staffing and providing more people to this triple celling? COMMISSIONER KING: It will help. It's not the help that we require immediately. I mean, it's a minimal amount of help. It's better than not having the 43. But another issue that comes up, as we train the 43, we're losing people. So our attrition rate is ten to 12 a month, I believe. So if it takes --

Why are they leaving? COMMISSIONER KING: Various reasons.

Such as? 84 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 COMMISSIONER KING: Some people come to the prisons, it's a weigh station before they go to the Police Department. Some people come -- there are few people -- it's a weigh station to the Fire Department. Some people don't like the shifts at the prison, so they want to go to the Sheriff's Department. Some people retire. It's a whole host of different reasons.

What is the average stay of a correctional officer? What's the length of employment? COMMISSIONER KING: I couldn't answer that question. I know a lot of people like Mr. Thompson, for example, who have been working at the Prison System for decades. All the gentlemen sitting behind me, my Wardens, Deputy Commissioners, they've all been working there a very long time. So there are a lot of people at the prison who meet the challenges and they're very dedicated 85 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 City employees and stay there for years, and then there are other people who have different ideas and things that --

I guess my question is, is there any way to do an analysis of the number of individuals who seek employment with your department? Is there any analysis of how long they stay? Certainly you're going to have some employees who stay a long time, but if there's a constant overturn, where does that take place? Do they stay a year? Do they stay six months? Do they stay a year? Do you have the ability to do that analysis so that you can also understand probably why people are leaving and maybe look internally as to what changes may have to take place in order to maintain the staff once you recruit them? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, I think that I'm sure we have the data somewhere in the prison where we could look at it and say, This is the average length of time somebody stays based on 86 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 our records. I don't know if that's automated so we can do it right away, but I certainly can check into that. I know that when people leave, they're asked to do an exit interview. It's not mandatory, but we do get them and I do see those, and that's how I can tell you anecdotally why people leave, because when they do fill out the exit interview, they tell us. Sometimes it's because they don't like the people, they don't like working at the prison, but most of the time, I'm moving to Florida, I'm going to the Police Department, what-have-you. I mean, I can go back and figure out if we can put that together, but, generally speaking, there's a whole host of different reasons why people leave the prisons.

Well, it seems to me, Commissioner, that it's a serious situation and that you and your staff might want to have that information 87 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 on an ongoing basis so that you'll know what's going on with your system and address some of the issues that are raised to help better recruit or help you in your recruitment process. It's not just for you, but all of the other people that are part of your team, to know and understand what's happening in the Prison System, why people come, why people leave and have more than an anecdotal reason but more of factual detail based on numbers and other documentation as to why they're leaving so that we can look at the system and respond to some of the comments made about what's happening up there and we better have a debate on fact than -- COMMISSIONER KING: That's what I'm all about, and that's just one of the things I haven't gotten to yet, but we will.

Tell me about the 24-point plan that we were supposed to receive in October or 88 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 sometime. COMMISSIONER KING: You were supposed to receive?

Well, we want to talk about it. You said that there was a 24-point plan. And it would seem to me that if there's a 24-point plan or any kind of plan to help address some of the issues that have been raised during these discussions, the Administration might want to share it with the Council. COMMISSIONER KING: The 24-point plan has been looked at. It's been revised. I think the number of initiatives has been reduced to a more workable number, and the City Solicitor is the one who chairs that group. He knows more about the details, but we continue to meet and work on that. But Prisons really isn't the focal agency as it were. The issues surround what the courts are doing.

Councilman 89 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Kenney.

Thank you. Is there a prison system national standard for numbers of inmates per square footage, numbers of correctional officers per inmates? I mean, obviously there are goals, but is there a standard which is accepted as the best? COMMISSIONER KING: There are national standards for different things. There is no national standard for inmate-to-staff ratios, because it depends on the facility, how it's set up. For example, at RCF, the population is different. There are females. That's not the jail where we find shanks and weapons. This is not where people are stabbing themselves. It's set up so that there are sight lines for unit controls and center controls, and we have more cameras in RCF than any of the other jails combined. So it's different for each jail. 90 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Is there a standard for square footage per prisoner, cell space? COMMISSIONER KING: There is a standard for square footage in regard to a living area for inmates.

What is that? COMMISSIONER KING: I don't know off the top of my head.

Does anyone there know? My concern or question is how far off we are on that standard. Not that every facility is perfect around the country, but how far off are we on triple celling prisoners and square footage. COMMISSIONER KING: When the jails were built, we built them as best we could to those national standards, so when you put a triple cell in a cell that was built for two, obviously there are going to be issues with what the national standards are. We're going through the process right now. The national 91 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 accrediting body is called the American Correctional Association, and we've had them up to the prison and we're going through that whole process to specifically find out where we're in compliance and where we're not.

Is that a report that's going to be issued? COMMISSIONER KING: No. They come and they tell us where they think there's a whole -- there's a book you can order that says these are the standards, and they say this is where you have issues and this is where you need to work. In Monmouth I know they triple cell inmates and they're accredited, so...

So you're going through an accreditation process right now? COMMISSIONER KING: We're starting that, yes.

When will that end? 92 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 COMMISSIONER KING: I don't know. They just came a month ago.

How long does it take; do you know? COMMISSIONER KING: It depends on what the issues are, because we have to decide whether they're going to do all six facilities. Two of them are pretty old. Maybe we'll decide not to do that. So in the next year, I would hope we would be pretty close to completing that process.

What is the status of the electronic monitoring system and getting some of these people with ankle bracelets out of the facilities and under electronic monitoring? COMMISSIONER KING: The last I remember hearing about that when it was discussed at the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, the Administration did make funds available for -- 93 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Did or didn't? COMMISSIONER KING: Did make extra funds available for electronic monitoring, and the last I remember hearing was that everybody in custody that met the current criteria for electronic monitoring had been exhausted, and that is the last I remember hearing about it. I don't know whether they've expanded the criteria or not, but that's the last report I got on the --

What was the date of that last report? COMMISSIONER KING: Months ago.

Months ago? Can you initiate another look at that or -- COMMISSIONER KING: Well, we're meeting -- the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee is meeting this week, I think, and I can bring it up again.

There was 94 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 testimony earlier about the communication system, about not every officer having a walkie-talkie and that besides CFCF there's a shared band with all the other facilities that seem to cause problems with stepping on transmissions. Do you have any information on that? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, we're very, very concerned about the radio system at the prison. Two or three weeks ago we did a riot simulation at CFCF just to go through a dry run-through, and we did have issues with the radios and some radios being found in places where they weren't charged. And there is that issue that the correctional officer brought up about the radios, and the issue with that is, we inherited the old system that the Police and everybody else had when they upgraded, and that system was better than the one we had, but it's not where we need to be. So we went through this whole scenario. I brought the issue up again 95 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 with the Managing Director's Office. The new young lady who is in charge of emergency management is coming up to the prison this week or next so we can sit down and discuss that. But we do have issues with communication and the radios. Even if I call in from my car, I might have to wait before two other people, whoever jumps in before me. So we do have issues with the radios and we're trying to correct those.

Is it standard or is it reasonable that every officer should have at least a radio? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, off the top of my head, I would say yes, it would be reasonable that everyone has a communication device, but that's -- that's not where we are at the prison.

I mean, do we know how many we need and what the costs are? I mean, those kinds of specifics. COMMISSIONER KING: I could get 96 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 you those. I don't know it off the top of my head.

I mean, with all the things we've talked about, some of the stuff is out of your hands relative to court orders and other types of things and the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and the Managing Director, but as far as having radios in people's hands, I mean, that's something that I think we could at least be a little bit effective with in kind of demanding and trying to transfer some money to you to buy radios. I mean, it's like not having a textbook in a grade school. It's kind of basic. COMMISSIONER KING: Like I said, I think the feeling was we would get the radios that the Police Department had and those would be better than the ones that we had, but they still face challenges. And, actually, when I -- this is what I -- I don't know if I should say. Anyway, when I left my house 97 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 that day for the drill, I have a radio in my van and I went -- I turned it to the emergency station and it went dead. So it's certainly an issue that we have to work on, and it's part of a bigger issue about emergency management at the prison and what happens when a chemical spill -- chemical cloud comes down State Road. What are we supposed to do with 8,900 inmates and 2,300 employees?

Probably be better coordinated if everybody had a radio. COMMISSIONER KING: I agree.

I would appreciate finding out how many you need and what the costs are, even if we have to deal with the system problem at some point. At least having -- that's the only weapon I assume they have, is a radio. Thank you.

Blondell Reynolds Brown. 98 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 In the emergency preparedness plan that was released by the Managing Director's Office maybe now months 5 ago, maybe two years ago, there was no 6 component or chapter of that document 7 that spoke specifically to how the Prison 8 System would handle emergency 9 preparedness? 10 COMMISSIONER KING: I don't 11 remember. 12 Was there anything on there? 13 No. 14

Were you 15 on the committee? 16 COMMISSIONER KING: I was 17 involved. 18

What does that mean? COMMISSIONER KING: We had a lot of meetings on this. I came, gave my opinion and then they were broken out into little groups and the report came together.

And the 99 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 answer to the question was, no, there was no chapter devoted to preparedness for the Philadelphia Prison System? COMMISSIONER KING: Correct.

So that underscores Councilman Jim Kenney's request of coordination between City departments, and it goes to Councilwoman Tasco's request for documentation and sort of justifies the request for A, B, C, D, E, F, G, which leads to a better solution for prison overcrowding. It just seems to me to be all tied together. COMMISSIONER KING: It is. I mean, the number one issue that drives everything at the prison is the number of inmates you have. I don't want to subject my officers to triple celling. I don't want to subject my officers to four people in a room that was designed for a social worker. I don't want to do that. If I had my way, I'd stop up the flow. I did that last year and got myself in a lot of trouble. I said, We're not taking 100 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 any more inmates until we get some empty beds, and that got us in trouble, landed us in court, because that's not what people want to do. So I don't want to do all that. I want everyone to be happy, feel secure, not feel like people are taking advantage. But it's a tough nut to crack with the emergency what we do at the prison, because let's say there's an issue with -- there was a fire the other week at the prison. What are we supposed to do with the 8,900 inmates? Do we have 8,900 handcuffs, 8,900 shackles? Do we have enough buses to ship 8,900 inmates? Where are we going to take the 8,900 inmates and how is the public going to react when there are buses driving down State Road filled with inmates and we're taking them to where, Veterans Stadium? Is the public going to want -- you understand what I'm saying? Even if you were to say release them, okay, we'll release the low-level folks. If we 101 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 release 40 low-level people -- 4,000 low-level people on State Road, you still have to have a plan as to where they go. So it's a really mind-boggling problem when it comes to that sort of thing.

So in the monthly meetings that you have, wouldn't that be the proper place to raise those types of circumstances? COMMISSIONER KING: The issues -- I just think that we're making a progression with the emergency preparedness plan. Like I said, we're meeting with the new emergency management person, Ms. Maricopa, I think her name is. She's coming up this week or next week so that we can sit down and say, Here's the problem, we got to take it to the next level about what it is we're going to do in the case of an emergency.

So to reiterate Councilman Jim Kenney's question, what is the short-term plan for 102 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 more radios? COMMISSIONER KING: Short-term plan is right now to meet with Ms. Maricopa and lay out what the issues are with the radios and the problems we had during the mock riot and see what it is she can do to facilitate the resources we need to upgrade those things.

All right. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Commissioner, what is your answer to the triple celling? COMMISSIONER KING: My answer to the triple celling?

What would you do? What is your answer to that? I mean, it's an issue raised by some of the employees here about triple celling and also -- I guess my question is, what can you do about any of this? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, I can be as creative as I can in finding places 103 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 for inmates to be that is a situation where everybody is as safe and secure as possible, but, again, triple celling, if you have a housing area designed for a hundred and I got to triple cell and it is now 150, you've just raised all the issues that the officers have to deal with by 50 people. So it makes it more difficult. I don't want to do it. It's the best choice amongst all the evil alternatives I have. But I would do, for example -- I was talking to Commissioner Horn in New York the other day. I was up there speaking to him. Their prison population has been reduced from 23,000 to 14,000. I said, How did you do that? Was that on purpose or was it a plan? I mean, was it an accident or was it plan? He said, It's kind of sort of a mixture of both. What they did was, they cut crime in the City of New York by locking up all the bad people and sending them 104 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 upstate. Two -- and this is why I keep emphasizing the judiciary -- they sped up processing of felony cases by 30 to 40 percent. They sped up the processing of misdemeanor cases by 30 to 40 percent, meaning people are spending less time in jail, meaning the population goes down. And then the fourth thing they did was, they reorganized their Probation Department. They said, We're not going to violate people because this is the second time you didn't show up for your appointment. They have kiosks. So in New York, you go to a kiosk. You say, I'm here. If you don't show up the first time, the computer sends you a letter. Second time you don't go, sends you a letter. Third time you don't go, it issues a warrant, and then if you bump into the police at any other time, then maybe you have a problem. And then they took the probation officers who were watching those little tiny people who were doing minor -- arrested or on 105 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 probation for minor things and they focused them on the people who hadn't got to the level of where they were going off to state prison for ten or years. 6 That's how you reduce the 7 population. Granted, New York and 8 Philadelphia are different, but that's 9 the type of plan you have to have in 10 place to effectuate this. 11

What makes 12 it different? Why couldn't we do that? 13 COMMISSIONER KING: I just 14 think that we haven't evolved yet to the 15 place where everyone is ready to sit down 16 and sort of be decisive about that. 17

Who makes 18 that happen? 19 COMMISSIONER KING: Well, 20 whoever wants to take leadership of the issue. I think the Mayor has done a good job in taking leadership of the issue. Before he came along, we didn't have a Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee. We didn't have a 24-point plan. We 106 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 didn't have a Solicitor who was in charge of the committee. And I guess we could all disagree about whether they're moving fast enough or not, but we have a foundation here. It's just that all those people on that committee -- the Mayor can only do so much. He can't -- if he was here, he'd probably say the same thing I'm saying. He doesn't want to triple cell. He doesn't want these officers to feel like they're taking advantage of them and they're not safe. The point is, the Mayor can't say, Okay, speed up those cases in criminal division of the Court of Common Pleas. Look at your bail guidelines. Take care of the backlog. The Mayor can't order people to do that.

Has he had a discussion with the courts to talk about that? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes. On the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, those are some of the things 107 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 that we talk about. Judge Fitzgerald before he was elevated to the Supreme Court instituted a process whereby they sped up the number of serious felony cases and how they were processed. It's just that -- and we know the processing times have increased, but the prison population hasn't. So the next step that people are working on is, well, are you saying -- you have to put a priority on cases where people are in custody. You got to make sure you're speeding up the process for that. We have another situation in the City where in the summer everybody goes on vacation. So if you're unlucky and you get arrested June 15th, you better consider yourself lucky if everybody who needs to be there to process your case, your public defender, your DE, the police officer, the judge, they're not one of them on vacation all over the summer, because then the case gets slowed down and instead of having it 108 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 take a month, it may take three. So there's all sorts to issues like that that have to be addressed. We started doing them and we need to take it to the next level. Otherwise, we're going to continue to be here and this really -- I mean, this is a symptom of the problem, the union being upset and concerned, as am I, about what's going on at the prison and we're sitting here sort of saying, This is what we think should be done, when the hearing -- what we should be focusing on in addition to this is, what is the bigger criminal justice system doing. And what concerns me -- and I don't know what word to use. Last year we were in the prison litigation and I had to go down and testify. Everybody is concerned about inmates, and they should be, and that's what the lawsuit is about. We want the inmates to be safe and secure. We want to make sure we're not violating their constitutional rights, but what everybody forgets about 109 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 is that overcrowding isn't just about constitutional rights of the inmates. It's about the staff who work there. The more inmates you put in the jail, the more difficult it makes for them to do their job, and the risk that something happens increases. So overpopulation is not just about inmates' constitutional rights. It's about the safety and security of the COs, the correctional officers, the social workers and everybody else who works there.

In the New York model, who took the lead to take action to alleviate the prison overcrowding? COMMISSIONER KING: I know early on they had a strong person. I think it was like a Deputy Mayor or someone who like oversaw the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, but then I think it was when the subsequent Mayors and people in the criminal justice system 110 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 together sat down, because people were fed up with crime, how are we going to redeploy what we have. That's what -- and that's what needs to be done, because if you go back, Mr. Eskind, our Public Information Officer, was reading the newspapers from 1952 and the headline is, Prisons are Overcrowded and the Union is Complaining to the Administration that You're Doing Nothing About It. I mean, it's an ongoing problem for decades. And when we had -- even when the courts are supervising, the prison population still went up. We got to build some facilities. So it's an ongoing problem. Until society says we're going to prioritize things differently, this is what's going to continue to happen.

Let me just ask you one last question. In the testimony earlier, Ms. Mims testified about the ratio of inmates to 111 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 correctional officer, and in your testimony you say that there is no 4 official agreement to that. Is that true? COMMISSIONER KING: It's absolutely true. There is no agreement. That's why Mr. Thompson, he knows -- he and I have been working together for a while, and he knows. Where is this agreement? I haven't seen it. They haven't produced it. There is no 13 agreement. We operate a certain way at CFCF and we can operate -- that's management's prerogative how we deploy and --

Is there an industry standard -- COMMISSIONER KING: No. 20

-- to the number of inmates to a correctional officer? COMMISSIONER KING: No. Again, it's based more on the design of the facility. I was up in New York a week 112 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 and a half ago and their ratios are different than ours. I've been to Montgomery County, Bucks County, all sorts of jails and prisons around, and their ratios are different than ours. Actually, if you compare us to other jurisdictions, we're more staff rich than other places. So it depends on the level and I think -- it just depends.

But they don't have as many inmates as we do. COMMISSIONER KING: Well, they may not have as many inmates overall, but, for example, in Monmouth County, they have 1,500 inmates. They're all in one facility. So RCF you have whatever it is today, 800-and-something. But what I said was -- I said to Deputy Commissioner Brockenbrough, I said, Go sit down with Warden Giorla, because we don't agree with the -- that we're bound by what we do at PICC, because it's different than CF, it's different than House of Correction. I said, Sit down 113 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 with the Warden and find out what he thinks is the appropriate staffing level in RCF given the fact that we're putting beds up. If he had come back and said, Commissioner, I think it should be the same in RCF as it is at CFCF, I would have said, Okay, that's fine, but that's not what happened. He came back and, This is what we think we can do and this is what we think is safe and secure based on everything that's happening. And, again, I'm open to talk to the union, but they have to come up with an alternative proposal. It can't be, There's an agreement, which doesn't exist, and you have to follow it. It has to be, Okay, Commissioner, I understand you want to do this, this is what we have to offer, and then maybe you work out a compromise. But it can't be one side takes all when there's no lawsuit or anything like that to back up the argument. And I don't think Warden Giorla or Deputy Commissioner 114 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Brockenbrough, all of whom worked in jails for decades, I have no reason to question their judgment about this.

This is my final question, I think. Who are members of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee? COMMISSIONER KING: Let's see. The Chairman of -- the person who chairs it in the name of the Mayor is the City Solicitor. Then we have the President Judge of Municipal Court, the Administrative Judge of Court of Common Pleas, the Court Administrator for the Court of Common Pleas, the Deputy Court Administrator for the Court of Common Pleas. The DA sends a representative. The Public Defender sends a couple of representatives. We have a couple other people from the Law Department, people from the Prisons, people from the Sheriff, everybody -- I think I got everybody. Clerk of Quarter Sessions, Probation/Parole -- well, the Probation 115 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Department and the Police. So everybody is there.

Any other questions? Councilman Ramos.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, you mention in your testimony that you're very close to having a bail office located at the Prison System. How much of this would reduce your triple celling once this gets functioning? COMMISSIONER KING: That's hard to predict. Something will have to look -- and I don't know how necessarily, but the goal is -- because part of what we think is the -- if you have to -- I don't know. On a Friday afternoon you come down and you pay your bail at CJC and you've got to wait for a fax or a piece of paper to go up to CFCF, et cetera, et cetera, you may be delaying someone two days or longer at the prison. 116 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 But if you come up, the bail office is right there, you deal with it in CMR, you can get out in a matter of hours. The theory is that that will reduce the population. I don't know how I'll be able to specifically tie it to triple celling, but our goal is to do everything that we can possibly do or get people to agree to do to reduce the population, and we think speeding up the bail process is one of those things.

You still haven't done any surveys to see how much this would reduce the population, by having a bail office right there? COMMISSIONER KING: No. I don't know --

But it gives me the impression that you think that this definitely would make a -- will bring down the number of inmates you house, because this bailing stuff because it is being done downtown versus on site 117 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 and that you wind up with, like you said in your testimony, families that want to get their kins out of your jail but they can't because the process -- the bureaucracy is too slow. So, I mean, by what you state, it seems like this can significantly -- COMMISSIONER KING: I hope that it does have a significant effect. I'm not sure. We'll have to see how it works and keep track of it. For example, I don't know how I would say if you were going to do a bail -- like predict who would use the bail window and what type of inmates they'd be bailing out. I'd have to wait until we had it up and see who is using the credit card, who is coming up to the jail to bail people out, what inmates those are.

When do you think this bail office is going to open up? COMMISSIONER KING: I'm expecting it immediately. I mean, we've 118 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 been talking about it now for about a month. I know the room has been identified. I know the Court has said we are going to dedicate staff. Everything is in place. So I would hope within the next month or less that we'd have that up and running. I know the credit cards are doing that now.

I surely hope -- and if we can be of any help, if I can be of any help in saying, Let's get this done, we need to get this done to see if in fact -- because I believe it can in fact start resolving the problem of triple celling and the concerns that you have and the union about triple celling. But in this committee, this Coordinating Committee that you refer to, is there talk about how do you change the -- this is very, very difficult. Now you talk about changing maybe even the mindset of -- changing the mindset of people, because the mindset here is 119 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 probably throughout the country. A lot of people are against building new prisons and expanding prisons, and you have people that don't want you housing any of your inmates or expanding into their neighborhood or using a facility in their neighborhood or building a facility in our neighborhoods to do this. It's like everywhere you go, everyone is saying no to you. We don't want you to -- more prisons is not the way to go. Don't bring them into my neighborhood. I mean, is that type of discussion going on? Has anyone broken through the ice of that very difficult opposition that's understandable? COMMISSIONER KING: The discussion goes on. I bring it up whenever I possibly can. One of the things we try to do is just raise the profile of the Prison System in a positive light, tell our story, tell what our issues are. Because what I say it is really -- when we talk about triple 120 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 celling at the prisons and we talk about the difficulties that the officers are going through, it's really our fault as a community, because the community decides what's important. And until the community decides what is it they want to do, Mr. McDonald, either you build a lot more prisons somewhere in the City or you come up, as the Mayor has started to do, with a more comprehensive plan on what you're going to do with people and decide -- what you need to decide is that we want the dangerous people who are going to hurt us in prison and those people who are just nuisances; for example, I don't know, I was driving on a suspended license and the judge puts me in jail for 60 days, if I had my way and I was the Commissioner and you didn't have a prior record, you'd go to work release, you'd go to a day reporting center, you'd come on the weekends. Those are the type of things that you have to do to address these problems. 121 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Commissioner, I think that given the circumstances, you're doing a good job under some very, very difficult surrounding circumstances. Since I have been in and out of your -- thank God, not as an inmate -- in and out of your facilities over the years, I continue to visit you, meaning the Prison System, either through ministry or my work here or what other capacity I have served in my adult life, and it is a very, very difficult job to do, extremely difficult. I visited a state prison recently and I was so happy that the place did not look so dark as it did the last time I had been there maybe two years ago. It was freshly painted. The color design was different, and the inmates were painting, exhibiting their artwork, and the place looked different. And those type of things, I think, help be able to maintain the prison safe and keep the population, who, to a greater 122 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 extent, understands that they've done something wrong and need to pay the price for it. But I don't envy your job, and the only thing I can see myself is only trying to be supportive, understanding that it's a very, very difficult operation. Thank you for your work. COMMISSIONER KING: Thank you. And I just want to say it's not -- I don't run the prisons by myself, but I have all these great people behind me that help me do it, and it trickles on down. The Prison Commissioner is nothing without the line staff and everybody that works between to do the job. And I often say at the prisons, one of our problems is, we're so good at dealing with the challenges that we're given, granted, it's good that we have officers who care enough to come here in City Council and let you know what they're feeling and thinking, but everybody there does a good job and every year we get another 123 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 challenge and we do pretty good with that. I don't know what Mr. McDonald thinks. He's looking at me, but that's what happens.

A couple of questions. The Coordinating Committee, is there anything to prohibit City Council from having a presence on that committee? COMMISSIONER KING: You'd have to ask the City Solicitor that one. I don't know.

Not a problem. Second question, you say each year you're given new challenges. Cite for us two or three accomplishments from this past year that were presented as challenges maybe months ago where 21 there's now been improvement. 22 COMMISSIONER KING: Well, for 23 example, the lawsuit that we got last 24 year, we went from a situation in the receiving room where we had lots of 124 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 people and now we've reduced that down to a hundred people that we have in the receiving room. People are going through there in hours. They're in a bed in 6 less than 72, and people are doing that 7 without -- not a lot of additional staff 8 and they're doing it with more inmates. 9 So that's number one. 10 The same thing at CFCF in the 11 intake area with the triple cells. It's 12 192 extra beds that are in that intake 13 area at CFCF. We haven't had a major 14 incident. No one has been hurt. The 15 inmates are processed. I'm not getting a 16 lot of grievances from there. The Prison 17 System adapted, responded to that 18 situation. 19 And the same thing, I think, at 20 RCF. So far -- granted, it's only been 21 two weeks -- the staff there has adapted 22 to that situation. They're going to make 23 it work. I have every confidence that 24 they will, and that's why I say that's the Prison System's greatest asset. 125 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Because four years ago, we adapted and put triple cells at House of Correction. We did such a good job, now everyone thinks I guess we should keep them forever. We don't think so. But those are some of the challenges that we faced. The Wardens, we've been on them, despite the fact that they have not as much staff as they would like that their posts may require. Assaults are still down or at the same level.

What's still down? COMMISSIONER KING: Assaults on inmate and staff across the system is down. Use of force is either consistent or down. And the length of time that inmates spend in their cells is less than it was last summer. And they're doing that. The staff has gotten less than it was last summer and we have more inmates. So this is why I say, I think that given all of the challenges that we face, we do a pretty good job at the 126 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 prison.

And you've put on the record a number of bullets, if you will, about this emergency preparedness big issue, which could be perceived as a new challenge. That has been registered with the Coordinating Commission and now you're at the step of coming up with a strategic plan to address that? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, we don't deal with the Coordinating Commission --

The coordinating -- this entity we've been talking about. COMMISSIONER KING: The emergency management office?

No, no, no, no. 22 COMMISSIONER KING: The CJCC?

Yes, yes, yes. COMMISSIONER KING: The 127 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 emergency thing wouldn't be something we'd bring up with them. That's the Managing Director's Office, and we have brought that up and I said Ms. Maricopa is coming to see us to talk about the radios and the whole thing.

Let me just ask you, what is the process for you to receive information as to what's going on in the Prison System if there are -- with the union? I see in one of the letters addressed to me they complain about officers being sent home without proper paperwork done after an agreement had been made within 48 hours. How much of that do you know? Does that happen at a level below you? And if there are things that are going on that the staffing people feel that they're not getting a fair shake, how do they reach you? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, I won't say I know everything that goes on at the prison, because it's a big place, 128 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 but I know most of the things that go on. At some point, for example, you mentioned the issue with the paperwork and people getting suspended and the paperwork not getting ready. That is an issue that we address and, as far as I recall, we solved that issue. If it's a recurring issue, this is the first I'm hearing about it from you. Maybe I was copied on that letter, but I was on vacation. So I try to -- I usually get an update on what the union is complaining about. Phil Goldsmith gave me this BlackBerry that I sleep next to -- that's next to my head every morning. Before I step out of bed, I get up and see how many inmates are in RCF, how many inmates we have in the Prison System, and every time there's an issue, whether it's somebody had to use pepper spray or there's some incident of violence, I get my BlackBerry, and usually before the BlackBerry, Deputy Commissioner Brockenbrough calls me, because I get 129 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 upset when I hear it from the BlackBerry before I hear it from him. So I know a lot of the things that are going on in the facilities and what the issues are, and we try to address all of them. The officer said she'd like for me to come over and talk to them. I don't have a problem with that.

This letter was dated June 5th. COMMISSIONER KING: That was last week. I was on vacation. But if that's a recurring issue, I believe we were supposed to have resolved that. I would imagine it has to do with the two officers at RCF who refused to open up and they were suspended. It usually arises when someone does something so egregious they're immediately suspended and told to go home. We don't have enough time to instantaneously do the paperwork. That's what I'm guessing.

Thank you 130 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 very much for your testimony. COMMISSIONER KING: Thank you.

Mr. Donald Tomes, Debra Minnick and Charmaine Odrick. Good afternoon. Would you state your name for the record, please, and begin your testimony.

Good morning. My name is Charmaine A. Odrick.

Pull the microphone to you, please.

Good morning. My name is Charmaine A. Odrick.

Pull the mike to you. Okay. Would you testify, please.

Yes. I'm usually the officer on G-2 at PICC. I started at PICC October --

Would you tell us what PICC is, please.

It's a maximum prison. 131 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

What does PICC stand for?

Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Facility.

All right.

I've been there since October, and I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it. Now I think I'm a permanent officer on G-2 and I'm usually by myself with 100 inmates.

Is this a male or female facility?

Male, yes. It's a pod where they have workers, Philacor, they have jazz. These are institutional programs. And they get up early in the morning. They like for them to be out of there by 11:30, have their meal and out. And it's constantly an ongoing thing, you know. We run the medications, sick hall, visits, medical calls, some come over for clinic trips. Previously I was scolded because I neglected to search a 132 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 gentleman, a couple of gentlemens. They got past me. I had somebody on the phone, like a visit. I'm looking for something to write it down, because during the course of the day, I might forget. And I had gotten a verbal -- a written warning, you know, not to let it happen again. But as I stated, I'm sorry, I just didn't have the time.

Have you been suspended?

No. 14

So your concerns here today are?

Just the unsafetyness in the jail, very much so.

When you were trained, were you trained at the facility?

We were at the Academy, yes.

Did you ever visit the facility during the course of your training? 133 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Yes. During the course of the training, they have you go to all of them. By the time I went, they were all women housed there back in '89.

So you're speaking to the fact that you have 100 women?

I have 100 men.

And you're the only officer there?

Usually like, okay, if I get a partner with me, maybe half an hour later they'll call them and put them somewhere else, you know, detail them somewhere else.

So when the men are let out of their cells, are they let out all 100 at the same time?

Oh, yes, and we have to let them out and immediately lock the cells back again.

And so you are in the midst of 100 inmates by yourself when they are out of their 134 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 cells?

When they're out of the cells, no. Usually when they're out of the cells, we have a partner.

You have what?

A partner. When they're out of their cells, we have a partner. I have another person with me.

But when they are inside, you're there and they're in their cells and you ought to be responsive to their needs?

Yes, because, you know, we still have to run -- you still run church. If they have jumar, you still run jumar. Like I said, you have to get those visits out. Medical is constantly calling. Everybody is constantly calling. Like I said, I have a Philacor pod and I have gentlemen that have to go in. And then you turn around 11 o'clock, they're back again, and we have to search them, put them back, feed 135 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 them, all one person. They have a rover. They'll call a rover at the beginning of the shift, but they always, nine times out of ten, pull this rover. When they call medications, somebody from another unit usually have to step out of their area so you can do your medication. We don't have any walkies on the area at all. The consoles do not operate -- I've been there since October, like I said. I don't know how long they've been broken, but they do not operate.

Thank you. Yes?

Good afternoon, panel. My name is Officer Minnick. I'm one of the transfers that were transferred from PICC and I'm currently on the unit of G-1, which is a maximum security unit. I'm the female that I've worked since I've been over there. We have -- it's three units, and we have an 136 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 aux, which one officer is responsible to oversee all three units, and I'm -- majority of the time, I'm over there all alone with 100 inmates. I'm responsible for feeding, making sure they get out for medication, visits and all the -- everything that's run in sick hall. And my main concern is the doors that they have over there are very insecure. The inmates, they can pop out them doors at any given time, because we have seen them. The locksmith had came over there on several occasions, fix what he can fix and that's it. The panel never works since I've been over there. We do not have walkie -- I haven't seen a walkie on the unit. And during our lunch period, if the Sergeants can't find anyone to relieve us, we are responsible for relieving each other. That means that you are responsible for looking out for your unit and another unit, which to me is a very unsafe environment, because I 137 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 cannot maintain my tours on my unit, then maintain tours on another unit, because if something happened on another unit while I'm making a tour, I'm held accountable for it. And it's very unsecured, you know. If you do get a partner, like Ms. Odrick said, within a matter of minutes they're pulling them and then you have nothing. And it's real unsecure. As far as a female, you know, we have to search males, and a lot of these guys are very disrespectful towards you, which we understand because they're tired of being locked down, you know. And we have to -- they tell us we can run restrictive movement, which means you can allow two inmates out at a time to take showers and use the phone, which in the meantime you have these two inmates, you have all kinds of other stuff going on, visits, medication, you know, and that's more inmates out. We have addressed this issue 138 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 before, but since I've been over there, I haven't seen any changes, and it's really -- it's not really a safe place to be.

Thank you. Sir?

Yes. My name is Officer Donald P. Tomes. I'm a Union Delegate at PICC. And what the officers have told you is that it's too much work for one CO to handle 100 inmates constantly going places. They run the jail like it's fully open. Inmates must go to GED, church service, social workers, wherever. Groups are going out left and right. You're by yourself. You have to use a key. Okay? There's no 19 rovers in the areas. There's no one to respond to help you at all. This issue had been addressed to the administration that when you have so many units in restrictive movement, when you have lack of staff, how can you run all of the programs without the 139 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 officers feeling unsafe and the people feeling unsafe, the social workers feeling unsafe? And it's a very stressful -- it's so stressful that I go into center control and I ask the desk Sergeant, could you call some people in for overtime? He said, Mr. Tomes, I have and they don't want to come. Now, any time some of them don't want to come in to make overtime, they say no, you know it's a bad situation. It's really bad. Now, Mr. King have also -- Commissioner King also expressed that we need 250 officers. So can you imagine what we're going through? If we need 250 officers, can you imagine what we're going through, being placed alone all the time? There's no rovers. They make you do your own mouth checks. You have to search inmates constantly coming in and out of your housing area. And if you miss an inmate, you are sent home, what 140 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 happened at PICC about two weeks ago. Most of the officers got sent home because they didn't pat search, and a lot of them was alone by theirselves trying to run medication, trying to make things work. The jail cannot work when you're understaffed. You have to stop these programs. You have to think about the safety of the officers. Thank you.

Thank you all very much for your testimony. Mr. Katz, you want to come back? Be brief. I'm freezing in here. Would you all let Mr. Katz have a seat, please. Sit at the table, please.

I just wanted to give you the information.

Would you state your name, please.

Bernard N. Katz, attorney for Local 159. 141 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 When I responded to some questions a couple of hours ago, I did not know that there were figures that the union had already accumulated for what was necessary to properly staff the complement and what the cost would be. So rather than wait until tomorrow to get it to you, I would like to state it to you now. There is a basic necessity of hiring 500 more officers. The cost of that is as follows: The basic salary is 34,700, the allocation for fringe benefits and similar expenditures is 9,000, for a total of 43,700, which amounts to an annual expenditure of 21,500,000.

Now, this is 500 total inmates you need or additional inmates -- I mean correctional officers?

Five hundred additional correctional officers, and the cost would be as I have just indicated. 142 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Thank you very much for the information.

I didn't want you to wait until tomorrow to get that information.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else here to testify on this resolution? Yes. Identify yourself, please.

Lorenzo North, President of Local 159. I appreciate the time you gave to the hearings today. We have went to the administration on many occasions, because my officers are in danger. This summer will be a long summer, and for the last three summers, I think we was lucky. In 1996 was the last riot we had at the prison. That was at the Detention Center. It's no joke. It's not fun. Officers get hurt and inmates. This summer I will say this: 143 6/11/07 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 The next step may be the courts or some kind of action by the union, because I cannot allow my officers to be in danger no more. So we're asking City Council for some kind of help, and I appreciate all the help you can give, but if Commissioner King continues putting my officers in danger, there will be some kind of action by the union. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your testimony. This Committee will stand in recess until the call of the Chair. Thank you. (Committee on Public Health and Human Services adjourned at approximately 1:15 p.m.) 144 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on June 11, 2007, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)