Why was that decision made? 950 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.)
If it happened before you got there, you don't have to take responsibility.
I understand. That's fair. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would just like to follow up with Deputy Commissioner Dexter Green. After 911 there were many threats that caused our schools to be evacuated. And I don't want to reinvent the wheel here, but there was lots of confusion. Parents were not being told clearly -- I don't want to use the word honestly -- when there was a bomb threat. Kids were sent home. Parents had no clue what was going on. And the communication between the School District and the media was even in some ways not as clear as it should be, saying that it was a fire drill rather than a bomb threat. Has that all been straightened 951 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) out? There was supposed to be some follow-up with us on that. It never happened. Could you explain that whole process? Has it been cleaned up and there's a more candid approach to what's going on?
Right after our conversation, I had a meeting with several of the school administrators to deal with that issue and to kind of clear that up. But even in recent weeks, we've been working with Fire Commissioner Hairston on some of these -- not so much the bomb threats, but more on the fires and whatnot being set in buildings and evacuation of students and how that should be accomplished. Again, things are not perfect there. But working with Fire Commissioner Hairston, hopefully over the next few -- I don't want to weeks, but probably over the next few months we'll have that piece straightened out. But in terms of the bomb scares themselves, we are actually telling folks honestly what the situation is.
You can imagine when a parent calls the school, fire engines are surrounding the school and they're told it's a fire drill. They've never seen fire engines show up for a fire drill. Obviously, there's some concern about 952 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) that.
Even with the anthrax scares, principals are probably less than candid. I understand what they were trying to do, but why not just let folks know exactly what they have.
Good. I appreciate that. That makes me feel a lot better because the phones were ringing off the wall during the period shortly after 911. And I know that the communication -- because I even talked to a journalist who said they called to find out what was going on and they were told the same thing, that it was a fire drill. Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you. Commissioner, thank you so much for your patience. We wish you all the luck in the world. And we certainly applaud you and your department for 953 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) just doing a fabulous job.
The Fire Department is next. (Witness come forward.)
Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good afternoon. I'm Fire Commissioner Harold Hairston, and with me to my right is Deputy Commissioner William J. McNulty and to my left is our Fiscal Officer Dave Beatrice. So good afternoon to you and the other Councilpersons. The Fire Department's FY '03 Operating Budget proposes $157,559,617 for the General Fund, $4,397,400 for the Aviation Fund. And $591,893 for the Grants Fund. This is an increase of $155,592, counting all fund over the current '02 budget. Last year, as you may know, we had a 12 percent drop in our fire deaths. We went from 51 the previous year to 45. We were pleased to have that drop. That represented 33 incidents, and 7 of the 45 deaths were caused by arson fires. We 954 2/26/02 COMM. ) increased the number of fire prevention programs that our fire prevention division did to 3200. Part of that -- and it's a program that we started sometime ago to deal with juvenile fire starters. We have a program where we interacted with 190 families to help bring that kind of problem under control, representing 213 incidents. We completed Phase II of Operation Children First. That was a program where we had it funded through William Penn Foundation where we got $550,000 to cover two years. And we looked at 58 high risk centers where we were checking children under the age of 12 and we installed over 31,630 ten-year smoke alarms. We believe those ten-year smoke alarms are a big answer to the problems that people otherwise have where they take the batteries out of smoke alarms. We put those in 17,000 homes. And if we include all of the smoke detectors that we installed last year, it was 46,063. 6 percent lower than we had in 1992 where we had 4,025. As you know, September 11th brought a 955 2/26/02 COMM. ) lot of changes to all of us, particularly in the service that we're in. And what I did with that was I took a senior chief officer and had him reassigned to direct our preparedness activities on a full-time basis. We brought in our chief officers and our captains, total of 150 of them, and gave them refresher training on managing the consequences of weapons of mass destruction. As you know, we sent some members up to New York, members in fact. Eighteen of them 12 stayed up for a little over a week, and one of 13 members who has really been elevated in that whole 14 urban search and rescue scene stayed up for 40 days. 15 He was also a person that went to the Olympics to 16 help in the preparedness there. 17 One of the things that we were concerned 18 with and we had been concerned with sometime and we 19 were able to get it into our training program last year was rapid intervention teams. And those are teams that set up so that we always have an additional engine or an additional ladder company at a fire scene just in case some fire fighter gets trapped and needs the services of having a full team prepared to go in and do nothing but deal with 956 2/26/02 COMM. ) rescue activities. Otherwise, they're in a standby mode on the fire grounds. And we spent about $110,000, I think, on actually buying additional rescue ropes and webbing and hand tools and those kinds of things in order to do that. The anthrax scare became something that touched, I guess, all of us from a national level as well as from a local level. And when we realized that that was going to be the case, we recognized we were going to be overcome with responses to that. So we did something I thought was rather innovative along with the Health Department and Fire Department. We put in what we call rapid assessment teams where we took two fire fighters that were hazmat trained and put them in a vehicle along with one police officer and one health care worker to respond to these incidents. And from the time that we did this, which was from October 12th until the end of the calendar year, we responded to 1263 of those incidents. No and thrash was discovered. We had a pretty fortunate year as far as injuries and accidents were concerned. They're down.
We did an averaging where we looked at from 1991 to 2000, and we were down 34 percent in 957 2/26/02 COMM. 2 percent in accidents. We had a number of enhancements in EMS, not the least of which was the fact that we took one of our medic units that was hours, increased that 6 to 24 hours and then we added three 12-hour units in 7 locations that were strategically placed around the 8 City. We responded to 186,000-plus medical 9 incidents. And quite a few of those ended up in 10 being hospital cases, as you might imagine. One of 11 the things that we have worked on very hard over the 12 last few years is to make sure that our dispatchers were certified. And we had them all certified through the Association of Public Communication Officials, something that we refer to as APCO. And we had them all certified as emergency medical dispatchers. We have oversight from a doctor by the name of C. Crawford Mechem who is our medical director, and he works not just for us, but he also works for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. And all of them are in compliance with Pennsylvania law. And they're actually certified through the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency called people PEMA. Our revenues were good over this last 958 2/26/02 COMM. ) year because we charge, as you know, for transporting persons to the hospital. 9 that we had collected in FY '92. 5 in FY '03. We had something that was fairly well publicized about dealing with Hepatitis C, as you might imagine, and we actually hired an infectious disease control officer. It was a position that we created, and that is working out extremely well. And we had training for everyone, every fire fighter and every paramedic so that they would understand the nature of infectious diseases and we focused specifically on Hepatitis C, and the training primary focus was on the universal precautions that we recommend so you can not end up being exposed to that dreaded disease. We improved our billing collections and increased our revenue. We also enhanced the quality of our assurance process by having mobile data terminals where we get rid of all the paper and the information's a lot more instantaneous and we're 959 2/26/02 COMM. ) able to take that information and download it and make decisions a lot quicker in terms of patient care as well as being able to decide what training needs we need, and it has worked out extremely well. And I'd like to say that I would invite any Councilmember to check out our Website. We're very proud of it. gov and then click onto the Fire Department under City services. I'd like to thank you for all of your support. We hope that you continue to give us that support. Again, thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner, how many fire fighters will be leaving in FY '04 as a result of the DROP Program?
Well, basically it's 167 that we had originally scheduled to leave. And some of them, as you might imagine, have started to leave already this past year. Out of that 167 that were originally scheduled, we had 20 to leave already. We anticipate some others will leave the same way. What we've decided to do with that is to -- we broke 960 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) it down about every way that you could possibly break it down. One deputy chief's in the DROP Plan, we have battalion chiefs, 29 captains, 70 5 lieutenant's, 297 fire fighters for all total in 6 that plan along with engineers, pilots, paramedics, 1 paramedics operations chief, and 1 captain. Now, what we decided to do when we broke it down was that we can do this by adding five classes starting in FY '03 of about 80 per in the class and then two the following year and then one the following year after that, and it should take care of all of our problems. There's a total of 436 people that have signed up for that DROP Plan.
How long do 16 the classes last? I know with the police officers 17 they said that it's 10 months in the academy. 18
It's much shorter for fire fighters. It's 16 weeks for fire fighters and 7 weeks for paramedics. The paramedics, of course come in already trained and certified and then we give them 7 weeks at our academy and then we put them with preceptors where they stay in until we're satisfied that they not only understand the protocols, but they have perform the intricacies 961 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) that are necessary in order for you to possibly intubate a patient and do the other things that are necessary.
You indicated that you'll have five classes starting in '03. When in '03?
We actually spaced it out to January of '03. We're counting on putting 80 in. June of '03 would be 80; January of '04, 80; May of '04, 80; and January of '05, would be 80.
Do when we have an existing list from which you can --
Yes, we do have an existing list. Fact is, we're preparing right now to do some hiring. We don't have much in the way of vacancies but we plan to have a small class of about 40.
So you known interruption or any impact in your operations because of the DROP Program?
Not at all. I see it, if anything, as an opportunity to do some things. I see it as an opportunity to promote some people. I see it as an opportunity for us to do planning and 962 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) those kinds of things because this is one of the rare cases where you know exactly how many people are signed up and what you can anticipate.
Great. Commissioner, on of your testimony, you talk about your net EMS revenue collections.
Well, after we pay the contractor. We have a contract with ACS, formerly Lockheed and we pay them percent. And after they 15 get their fee, that's what I mean by the net.
And what is the amount that the provider receives? Did you say 15 percent?
It depends on who you talk to, but most of the people that you talk to that have systems that are similar to ours where 963 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) it's with a major City, we probably do better than anybody. The only person I think that might be close would be Houston, and Houston has, I think, 80-some ambulances and they run a few more thousand calls than we do. They're collections, I think were close to million, but that was based on a gross 8 figure and not a net figure -- 20 million, I'm 9 sorry, not 22 million. 10
Thank you. 11 The Chair recognizes Councilman Ortiz. 12
Thank you, Madam 13 Chair. I've got to begin the way we always begin, 14 Commissioner. Again, out of the corps of fire 15 fighters -- and we seem to have a problem recruiting 16 Latino fire fighters for some reason or another. 17 What is the percentage of Latinos right now in the 18 Fire Department? 19
And over the years, we've had this problem of being able to bring in 964 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) Latinos from the fastest growing community in the City. Do you have any inkling as to why?
Well, actually, I think that when haven't done badly, all things considered. As you know, we go back some time where we decided to set our goal at percent, and we've met that 8 goal since when set that goal. 9
So that's why we have gone up to the 3 percent that we have right now?
So in every class that you have right now, we are getting 10 percent of Latino men and women coming into Fire Department?
Very good. In the issue of Hepatitis C, give me a perspective on it. How is it affecting and impacting the Fire Department and the finances? And how are we doing with the fire fighters who have contracted Hepatitis C? 965 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.)
We only one person that I can think of that is really suffering from long-term illness where it has become so debilitating that the person cannot work, and that's Mary Kohler. The other persons are still coming to work. They are getting medications. They are getting the meds that they need and so forth. It may not be a perfect scenario, but it's one where has not become so debilitating to them that it really has affected our service. As you might imagine, most of these people that have Hepatitis C actually got it more than 10 years. Since I've been the Commissioner, they've been universal precautions, and I think we only have two cases that we know of.
Incubates and it takes it time to be able to show itself?
Well, I don't think so. I think what happens is we've had these procedures in place for a very long time. And if you suspect that you have a contact, what you do is you tell us and you fill out the forms and you get medical 966 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) attention from it immediately. And so we would have that on the record. We've been encouraging people, and fact is, have had it as a requirement as to if you have a contact or you suspect that you have a contact, you're supposed to notify us so that we can take the proper steps as far as the hospitals are concerned. So I think it's because we have been using these precautions for a very long time where you put the gloves, on you put the mask on, you make sure that you don't have any open cuts or anything like that, and you do exactly what the doctor's have taught us to do as to why we've been so successful since we've used the universal precautions to have such a low rate of it.
Well, that's an argument that you can argue whether or not it's being resolved or not. There are a couple of things that are in there. One of which was to put some ventilators in the fire houses. We have worked with Risk Management. Risk Management is now engaged in contracts to see that that happens. They have eight of them listed so that they can get those things 967 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) done. They did engineering studies and so forth, the fortunate part of which was that the air in the fire houses was nowhere near as polluted as it had been otherwise thought to be. And so that's on its way to being resolved. The base line testing for Hepatitis C has all been set up. We have plans within this next month to run some pilots. We'll have about 200 people that will be tested as part of the pilot to be set up in four sites. We're going to see what we learn from that in terms of setting it up. It takes about minutes per company in order to do that. 14 Once we get the feedback back from that, then we're 15 going to test everybody in the Department. And that's all being arranged through and contracted through Risk Management. So those are the two things that have really been the major issues as far as that is concerned. And some of the other issues we had been working on in just have good relationships from the union and we've been meeting, not discussing but cases where we can implement things that we think are good for everybody. That's the kind of thing that we're trying to do.
Thank you, Madam 968 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) Chair.
Thank you very much. Are there any other questions from Members of the Committee? The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo.
Commissioner just to finish up here and it sounds like I'm going to be the last member to address you. I just want to tell you what a great job the Fire Department always does under the worst conditions. They're always there. I just want all of you to know how I personally feel about the work you do.
Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I appreciate your support, not only today, but over the years. And by you being a member of our Citizens Fire Prevention Committee, it means a lot to us.
Thank you. 969 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) Thank you very much, Commissioner. And gain, thank you for your patience.
Philadelphia prisons is next. (Witnesses come forward.)
Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
My name is Thomas Costello. I'm the Prisons Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia. With me today, to my right, Deputy Commissioner Press Grooms; to my left, Mr. Ed Szymanski, Fiscal Officer; also here today is Leon King, our Chief Legal Counsel; Dianne Granlund who is the head of our Population Management Unit; and Alan Appel, our Director of Inmate Services. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and answer any questions you may have concerning the FY '03 Operating Budget for the Philadelphia Prison System. We have some submitted some extensive written testimony. However, I would now like to point out some of the highlights for our FY '03 budget request. 970 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) The $164.7 million Operating Budget request for FY '03 is based on a projected average daily inmate population of 8,034 and is 8.6 million or 5.5 percent more than our FY '02 estimated obligation level. FY '03 General Fund Class 100 request of $94.1 million reflects a phase-in of additional full-time staff and overtime savings and is an increase of 2.3 million over FY '02. It funds an average of 2,007 full-time positions, including an additional 200 positions for the women's detention facility, tentatively scheduled to be opened in the latter part of FY '03. The General Fund Class 200 request of $64.9 million contains funding for increased cost of health service and foot services and out-of-county housing for inmates. This is a 10.8 increase over FY '02 estimated obligation level of 58.6 million and is related to the rise in the inmate population. Funding levels for Class 300, 400 and 500 remain the same as the previous year. The FY '03 budget will allow us to continue to maintain our facilities in a safe and secure manner, provide adequate medical and mental 971 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) health services, allow us to continue to maintain our inmate services programming, including social services; in-house substance abuse treatment programs; and our educational, vocational, and training programs; in addition to maintaining our population control programs including our community substance abuse treatment program which not only serves as a population control mechanism, but also reduces the overall rate of recidivism. It is important to note that absent the current population control programs we would be required to house nearly 1400 inmates within the PPS, which is actually higher than our current population at the House of Correction, one of our main facilities. Madam President, this concludes my testimony. I'm now available to answer any questions that you may have.
Thank you very much. You state in your testimony that the City is taking a number of steps to control the growth in the prison census. What steps are you taking?
There are a number of 972 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) steps that are being undertaken by the Population Management Unit. There are -- Ms. Granlund do you want to address that?
Ms. Granlund, our Director for Population Management will address that, Madam President.
Madam President, good afternoon. Dianne Granlund. There are a number of things that the prison and the City in general have done in conjunction with the First Judicial District because it's clear that although we operate the hotel, they're in charge of the business. There are pretrial release guidelines that the First Judicial District has implemented, and implemented when the cap went off which are, in theory at least, supposed to govern who comes into jail who does not based on an evaluation of prior failures to appear to court, ties to the community, the nature of the offense, being charged presently, and those kinds of factors. They work fairly well in screening people away from 973 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) the jail from the beginning, from arrests onward. There are a number of other things that we use. We use electronic monitoring sometimes on a pretrial basis and sometimes on a post-sentence basis to get people out of jail back into the community and into treatment. There is the Treatment Court which is under the supervision of President Judge Louis Presenza in the Municipal Court who will screen people at all stages criminal justice system in an effort to divert those from jail who are in need of treatment. There's the Intermediate Punishment Program which also diverts people from jail, whether pre-trial or post-trial. That happens at almost any point along the way. These people are somewhat more serious offenders, although they continue to be nonviolent offenders. We have the a program which we discussed this morning during the Managing Director's testimony which is an early parole program to drug and alcohol treatment programs. There are other initiatives that my office has undertaken to speed up the trial of cases of people who are in our custody so that we can 974 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) reduce their length of stay in the Philadelphia Prison System. There is also am Earned Time Good Time Program which is a court -- it was devised by court regulation. That has been amended to permit the awarding of Earned Time Good Time to people who not only remain infraction-free, but participate in and successfully complete programs that are offered in the prison setting.
Can you tell us what the re-arrest rate for people under that program, the Good Time Program?
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Ortiz.
Good afternoon. I'm going to read into the record a letter that was left by Councilwoman Blondel Reynolds. She could not be here. She wanted to put this letter on the record 975 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) and ask you the questions that come out of the letter. It's letter from the Indochinese American Council addressed to Warden Levy. "I would like to bring to your attention a very unpleasant experience of three other adults, including a 9-month pregnant woman and myself had to go through during the freezing night of February 11, 2002, at your facility. This pregnant woman is the girlfriend of the incarcerated man that we tried to bail out from your facilities. With your permission, I will not disclose the name of the incarcerated man because of fear of reprisal against him. "As the head of our community-based organization, I volunteered to help get a family to get one of their members released from your facilities. The members of this family do not speak English very well nor do they know how to communicate with correction officers. "We arrived at your facility at 11:00 p.m. on February 11, 2002, with bail paper. Ten minutes after we handed in this paper, we were advised by the receptionist that we could not stay in the facility and must wait for our man in our car 976 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) which was parked in the facility's visitors parking lot about a quarter mile from the facility. We complied. However, we were forced to wait at the parking lot until 4:35 a.m. or for more than five hours and a half after we presented the bail paper. During this period, all of us, including a ninth month pregnant woman had to walk a few times in the freezing night from the parking lot to the reception area in order to use the bathroom. It took about 10 minutes to walk from the parking lot to reception building. At one time I explained to your staff that the pregnant woman might deliver a baby any time. Instead of taking this concern seriously, one correction officer said that she was concerned more about my impatience more than the possibility that the woman might deliver a baby. This remark was made loudly in front of a number of people who happened to be in the reception area. I found this remark distasteful, insensitive, humiliating, irresponsible and certainly lacking in dignity. "I would appreciate it very much if you could respond to my following questions regarding the policy of your facility: "Why weren't we allowed to stay in the 977 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) heated reception area until the incarcerated man was released on bail? "Why were we forced to stay in our car in very cold weather for more than five hours without being able to talk to anybody? During this time we used our cell phones to call the facility, telephone number, (215) 685-2862, several times and no one pick up the phone. "Why did it take more than five hours to process the release of one incarcerated person? "One of the purposes of this letter is my sincere hope that no one will have to go through what I call inhuman and humiliating treatment by your staff and that all people who come to your facility will be treated with dignity and respect. "Thank you very much for your prompt attention. Von D. Doy, Ph.D., (ph) Executive Director, Indochinese Center." Ms. Reynolds could not be here and she left this letter, and I had would like a response for the request.
Mr. Costello, I too had received the very same letter. I forwarded it to your attention, ask that you 978 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) investigate same and report your findings. To date, I don't believe I have received a response to my letter.
I will certainly investigate that. I don't have a response right now, Madam President. I will certainly look into it and respond formally to both of you.
I just had one question about the facility, which facility was that?
Thank you. 979 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.)
Commissioner, how many -- what's the total population now currently in prison?
Our total population as of this morning, actually as of last night midnight was 7,689 inmates.
While you were here, we had a big demonstration outside with people that were questioning the treatment of prisoners in the health program that is currently in service at the prisons. They're concerned in terms of HIV, Hepatitis C, the treatment they get. On February 20th, I got a letter -- and you know that we're going to have a hearing on Thursday.
I got a letter on February 20th about a Mr. Francis Xavier Cannon, and I got this from the law firm of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky. They represent the Estate of Mr. Cannon. He received injuries while in prison. And according to the newspaper, Mr. cannon allegedly struck a correctional officer while at the 980 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) correctional facility and the correctional struck Mr. Cannon in the jaw causing a compound fracture to the right mandible. What occurred next is unclear, other than the fact that Mr. Cannon was transferred at sometime thereafter to the correctional center's medical facility operated by Prison Health Services may have remained there approximately hours in 9 spite of the fact that his right side was swollen. 10 He was spitting blood and agitated. 11 More than 24 hours after the assault Mr. 12 Cannon was transferred to Temple East, Northeastern 13 Hospital. According to their hospital records and 14 admission, Mr. Cannon was noticed having extensive 15 bleeding and swelling to the right side of his face. 16 He was brought to the emergency room for further 17 evaluation and he was intubated in the emergency 18 room for airway protection. 19 Mr. Cannon was then admitted to the 20 Intensive Care Unit with diagnosis of respiratory 21 failure in addition to mandibular fracture. 22 Mr. cannon underwent surgery to correct 23 the fracture, but his postoperative course was poor 24 because of a combination of reasons, including anesthesia being responsible for aggravating his 981 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) preexisting liver condition. Mr. Cannon was delivered to the hospital and his family was notified and by that time Mr. Cannon was unconscious. Surgery for the jaw was required. He died October 14, 2001, from kidney failure..." Did you conduct an investigate into this case?
The findings from the Internal Affairs did not show that the officer involved violated our policies and procedures. But that --
We're not talking about the officer. It's the treatment. The officer might have hit the individual, but it's the hours 21 that go on after that and what happens within those 22 24 hours. 23
Well, again, the 24 investigation on this incident I believe is still ongoing. I don't -- I believe that there's also 982 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) been litigation filed by the family of Mr. Cannon. So at this point, I don't know how much information would be available at this time, Councilman.
Yes. What did you tell the family? The guy is in the hospital at one point. He gets into a fight and then he dies.
Well, the information I received specific to this case was that he had other conditions. He had a major problem, medical problem. Although he was taken to the hospital initially because of the injury he incurred as a result of the incident, there were other factors that led to his death, not the broken jaw.
Well, I don't think many people die from a broken jaw. That's why people are wondering why he died.
He died from existing conditions. To the best of my knowledge on this particular case, he died from existing medical conditions that he had prior to being incarcerated. 983 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.)
This happen to other individuals within the prison system and have come under the care of this company that you have a contract with for what, $27 million is it now?
$27 million. And this company has come under criticism, internal criticism, by your on consultants, but they still got renewed in terms of their contract. And that criticism in terms of the consultants was never really turned over to this Council while we were investigating the performance of this company. Don't you think that those documents should be made available to us now?
Well, the studies that have been made about the performance of Philadelphia Health Systems and the studies that consultants that have written that we have paid with taxpayers' money.
I believe that there's been documents submitted by the City. I do not know to what extent. I assume that that was the 984 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) information that we had submitted. At this point, maybe the Managing Director has some additional information.
This company was granted the contract really without -- this contract was not put out to bid again, right? We just renewed them?
There was other companies involved with PHS. Prison Health Services is the name of the corporation. This is Leon King, our Chief Legal Counsel.
Good afternoon, Councilman Ortiz. In regard to the documents you just referred to, I believe you're referring to DePaul reports. We provided to your office the DePaul for 2001 and the year 2000 and we're gathering the ones from 1995 to 1999 that you requested and you should have them in advance of the hearing on Thursday.
Did we get them yet? 985 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.)
I don't know if they're there yet. I know that we're working on it collectively.
Councilman, this is Estelle Richman, Managing Director. There was a very controlled bid process for PHS that we did. They've just completed their first year. The contract was awarded in July of 2001. We did go through a process. We monitored this contract very tightly. Many of your issues, I believe, should really be directed to the City to know how our tight our monitoring is.
And I will have the person who manages the contract here as well as people from the Behavioral Health System who oversee and tell these folks what to do. Unfortunately, I will be out of the area, but the folks who have monitored this contract and worked this contract will be available for your questions and to answer what they're doing and how they're doing it.
Well, whatever information you have also about Mr. Cannon, we'd really appreciate. And we would like to find out 986 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) what communications you had with their families and so on. It's strange that people die. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Commissioner, I'd like to do two things. One, I want to go back to one day last week at the Appropriations Committee hearing. We had some discussion about the total number of beds or cells, holding areas that are available to people who happen to be incarcerated in our system. There were, at the time, a fair amount of numbers kind of going back and forth. And at some point, I think we lost track of -- we may have forgotten what the original question was. Your testimony back on that day on February 19th was that the current estimate for average inmate population was 7,674. Somewhere in the course of the hearing I then asked the question about the prison cap. While 987 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) naturally I was aware that the cap technically has been lifted by the court, it was obviously put into place because the prison naturally can only hold or should only hold so many people, I'm assuming according to some guidelines, and therein, started a bit of the problem. Can you tell me how many prisoners do we have, and define the term, how many beds, how many cells, how many spaces, what's the occupancy that you're allowed to have by way of any code in the various facilities we have?
Currently, Councilman, there is 7,689 inmates that are under the custody of Philadelphia Prison System. The number of inmates that are actually in the facilities today is 7162. Our current number of beds available --
7,689 are the number of inmates that are committed to the Philadelphia Prison System under the jurisdiction of this county, of the City. Of that total, as of today, there is 7,162 that are actually being housed within the system, in the physical facilities in Philadelphia.
So that means that 988 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) 527 are somewhere else?
409 are housed in Delaware County. There are 50 being housed in other jurisdictions on rent to other facilities. They're not being housed in the system. They will eventually come back to Philadelphia to finish out their cases. And we have 68 being housed at the State Department of Corrections.
Okay. Now, the 7162 number, how many beds do we have in our facilities to deal with that cohort of people.
It was 5600 originally prior to CFCF being completed. It was 5600.
CFCF actually added about a thousand beds to the system because we closed Holmesburg Prison which had a little over a thousand 989 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) beds. So CFCF added a thousand beds to the prison system.
Well, the total was never officially changed but, actually, if you were to use that number as a base, we would just add a thousand beds to that. It would be 6600.
We have 7468 beds right now in the prison system. So the cap had -- there was no correlation between the cap and the number of beds that were available. That was a number that was given by the court which, to my knowledge, had no actual formal formula attached to it. It was a number that 5600 would be the ideal cap according to someone in the court system.
So based on the information you shared, we actually have 306 beds empty?
So we don't have an 990 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) overcrowding problem now?
Well, I would always like to see more beds available, but it's -- everyone has a bed as we speak.
I understand that. But why would you say -- if you have 306 beds empty, why would you say that you'd always like to have more beds?
Well, there are some beds wouldn't be available to fill because of classification issues that spoke about last time. For example, I used the female classification and the male so...
So sometimes you have an imbalance between the various classifications, notwithstanding the fact that you actually have more beds available than you have need for?
If they're not in the right categories, that causes a problem.
For the total 991 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) population and on average year to year, what is the recidivism rate with regard to people who have been in the facility or any other facilities once, on average, how many times are they coming back?
You must run a really nice facility or they must not have anything else to do with themselves. Does that strike you as high?
Is the high just because the number is 81 percent or is it high because it's significantly above either the national average or -- I mean, how is that rank as compared to other major cities across the country or counties that have prison systems?
Those reporting recidivism rates report basically on whatever they consider to be the definition recidivism. One of 992 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) the issues that we have to deal with is measuring exactly what that means as far as this jurisdiction.
To me, a recidivist is someone who is convicted of a crime and then eventually is re-convicted at sometime in the future. That person would be, to me, considered a recidivist. In a jurisdiction such as this our main issue is the arrest rate because many of those coming through, come through strictly because they're arrested, whether or not they're convicted. It's a real percentage of repeat arrestees that come into the prison system that create a problem for us.
Is the 81 percent figure represent everybody who was in once and comes back through regardless of whether they're ultimately convicted or not?
It represents the number of any of those who have been arrested and was processed in our prison system and re-arrested for the past 16 years that we've been keeping records.
What's the rate for 993 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) people who have actually been convicted once and have come back through and subsequently been convicted again?
We do not have specific figures on that at this point. We're trying to ascertain exactly what that rate would be and trying to break it down in terms of length of time between convictions, such as someone who comes in six months or is arrested, convicted, serves their sentence, discharged, and comes back within 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 2 years. We're working on that project right now, Councilman, and we're trying to get accurate data on that issue.
What's the percentage of people who come through the system, whether they're convicted or not? Let me preface the question. Is it my understanding that everyone who is ultimately processed is also drug tested?
Is one of them to determine the presence of drugs or other illegal substances either in their blood or their urine? 994 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.)
Some of the tests do. Mr. Grooms, do you have anything specific as far as -- You mean if they have any illegal in their system?
Why not? Don't you want to know? Aren't there also safety issues involved, or don't you need to know whether someone has in addition to whatever it was that they were locked up for -- I mean, I think there's literature out in the public that seems to indicate that some significant proportion of people either arrested or convicted have some kind of drug problem. How would you know that? Where does that information come from?
Well, the information comes from various studies that have been completed. In fact, the last study that was completed in this system showed about 80 percent of everyone coming through the system has a form of either drug or alcohol substance abuse. 995 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.)
But then you tell me that just in the regular course of business as people are being processed that they're not drug or substance tested?
There probably isn't a basis for doing that at this point because of the number of admissions that come through the system and the --
A whole series of 996 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) things happen. You don't want to know whether this person at that moment has something going on in their system. Don't they present some level of potential threat to anyone that they're either in contact, whether it's at the moment a fellow inmate, some other person, correction officer. I mean, if somebody is completely whacked out on some substance don't you want to know as they're coming through the door what you're about to deal with?
They would be dealt with specifically if there was some deviant behavior. There is an extensive questionnaire that is given upon admission.
Most people act out when they get arrested. Last I checked, it wasn't a pleasant experience. So if you're arrested and act like a nice person or don't exhibit these deviant behavior signs or you're not throwing your arms up and down or speaking, you know, in three foreign languages at the same time or foaming at the mouth, okay, you come in, you sit down, go sit over in 997 2/26/02 COMM. OF THE WHOLE - BILL 020001 (cont'd.) chair and we'll deal with you when we get to you, notwithstanding the fact that they maybe as high as a kite and have all kinds of other stuff going on in their system and at some particular moment flip out on somebody and stick a pen in their neck.
Well, normally, anyone coming in, again, every inmate coming in every new admitee is screened.