Committee Hearing, October 31, 2006

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, October 31, 2006 10:10 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER, CO-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL 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 Council Committee on Public Health and Human Services to order and state that I'm the Chair of the Committee, and you see these chairs, the Councilmembers will float in, but this is not a bill. It is a public discussion, so we will open the hearing and begin the discussion. I'd like to have the Clerk read the resolution, please.

Resolution 060711, 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.

Thank you very much. I have a statement I'd like to read prior to calling our first panel to the table. Police officer, public servant. Firefighter, public servant. Corrections 3 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 officer, public servant. Too often when we think of our City's public servants who protect our public safety, we think of police officers and firefighters, but not correction officers. When issues arise that place our police and firefighters at risk, we often do not hesitate to ensure their safety, and rightfully so. In this context, we must do the same for our City's correction officers. Over the past few years, our City's prison population has exploded from over 7,000 to close to 9,000 in just three years. Like any other public servant who protects our public safety, we need to ensure that correction officers have a safe work environment. As recently reported in the Philadelphia Tribune, allegations have been made that the Prison System has problems with security lapses and inaccurate head counts, which led to an inmate escaping from the House of 4 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Corrections and a rape suspect being missing for approximately hours. 4 These security issues and the 5 overcrowding problem have created an 6 environment where inmate crime, violence 7 and riots are more likely to occur and 8 have produced an unsafe and severely 9 stressful workplace for City employees in 10 our Prison System. In addition, this 11 environment has led to renewed litigation 12 against the City regarding possible 13 violations of the constitutional rights 14 of inmates. 15 Considering this information, 16 the purpose of this hearing today is to 17 discuss and address the overcrowding 18 problem in our Prison System. Through 19 this dialogue, I hope that we will raise 20 awareness regarding the safety and 21 security concern in this City workplace 22 and identify ideas and suggestions to 23 improve and address this problem and move 24 the City in a corrective course of action. 5 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 We thank you for coming, all of those who are here. Those of you who have not signed up to testify, if you would do so over at this table, we will add you to the witness list. We hope that this will be, and we believe it will be, a productive discussion about what's happening at the prisons, and we do want solutions in addition to you raising your concerns. You may have anecdotal stories you want to share, but please, let's try and offer how we can make the system better, how can we do something about it. Because we can all complain, but the real dialogue has to be what can be done. So to that end, let us begin with our first panel, which will be Leon King, Esquire, the Prison Commissioner; Pedro Ramos, Esquire, the Managing Director; and Alan Butkovitz, the City Controller, if he's here. If not, Mr. King and Mr. Ramos, come forward.

Good morning, Madam Chairwoman. 6 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Good morning.

My name is Pedro Ramos, Managing Director for the City of Philadelphia, accompanied by Commissioner Leon King of the Philadelphia Prison System. Also available with us today is the City Solicitor, who chairs the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and has spearheaded an effort that we'll refer to later as a 24-point plan that's involved the various criminal justice partners. I'll testify my prepared remarks and followed by the Commissioner and then open discussion.

Sure. Do you have copies of your remarks? Have you turned them in? You did not.

I do not know how or when they were transmitted. I'll check on that.

Okay.

They're brief. 7 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Okay. Why don't you make your testimony and then we'll make copies.

Okay. Thanks. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Public Health and Human Services Committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to testify about the City's Prison System. I know that the system has been in the news lately and I appreciate the opportunity to emphasize this Administration's commitment to a safe and secure environment for the staff who work at the prisons and the inmates who reside there. It is indisputable that the population of the Philadelphia Prison System has increased over time at varying rates. 2 percent average increase in the in-house population at the Philadelphia Prison System, when you compare each month to the same period of the prior year and then average the increases. 8 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Consistent with prior years, the average increase for the overall census has been a little bit over four percent. Since April of this year, though, the overall census increased by just under four percent. Our in-house population increased over eight percent. This was caused primarily by the unusual seasonal uptick, as well as the loss of contracted beds in Delaware County. We lost 350 beds earlier in the year in Delaware County. As in prior years, we're now beginning to see a seasonal downturn in the population. In response to these increases, the Prison Commissioner has continued, with the support of the Administration, to ensure that our system can safely house all those detained on State Road. Since 2003, correctional officer staffing has increased by 16 percent, and from 2002 to 2006, the Prison's budget increased by more than percent. 25 Complicating the management of 9 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the prison population, we were informed at the end of calendar 2005 that Delaware County would not be renewing our contract for bed space in their facility. Using a housing consultant, we were able to reduce the Delaware County beds in phases, coupled with an extensive effort by the Public Defender's Office to review all cases and recommend release alternatives where appropriate. The Commissioner took steps to add bed wherever possible throughout the system while ensuring that there was adequate staff either through hires or through the utilization of overtime to ensure staff and inmate safety. He's been supported by the Capital Program Office and the Department of Public Property in its efforts. We also turned our attention to finding outside housing. Approximately 100 inmates are now housed in a Monmouth County, New Jersey facility, with the potential for another 100 next year. 10 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 We're continuing discussions with another facility in New Jersey as well. In June, the Prisons advertised for housing opportunities, and we expect this process to yield 200 additional beds by next spring. In addition, the Commissioner will continue to identify other outside spaces. My office recently hired a former Divisional Deputy City Solicitor, Milton Velez, to oversee our Criminal Justice Population Management Unit in the Managing Director's Office. Mr. Velez has worked in the state court system, the Law Department's Civil Rights Unit and was a participant in the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee during his tenure in the Law Department. In addition to managing the special release hearings and programs, he will also focus on reaching out to different system partners, not just CJCC members, to explore the development of alternatives to incarceration. 11 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 While criminal defendants are housed with the Philadelphia Prison System, their incarceration results from the actions and activities of numerous partners within the criminal justice system. Police officers arrest and detain defendants. The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office charges and prosecutes the criminals. The Defender's Association represents many, if not most, criminal defendants.

Judges and staff of the First Judicial District schedule hearings, set bail, conduct jury and non-jury trials. As a result, each of those partners, to a greater or lesser extent, affects the size and makeup of the prison population. For several years, these partners and other related agency representatives have met as the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission, the CJCC. This Commission convenes to discuss and address significant issues and concerns of importance to the 12 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 criminal justice system. With the leadership of the City Solicitor, the group's activities have focused on finding systemic solutions to the growing prison population. Along with the Philadelphia Prison System, the CJCC has undertaken specific initiatives and programs to improve system efficiencies and case management through increased staffing and improved scheduling, as well as assessment of case flow. A subset of the larger group meets regularly to recommend process improvements. Over a year ago, the City retained the services of the Criminal Justice Institute at Temple University to compile empirical data to help understand the growth in prison population. The interim reports from the Temple team have helped the CJCC develop and implement policy changes geared towards broad-based, long-term solutions to the challenges that face the criminal justice 13 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 system. The City will soon receive a final report from the Criminal Justice Institute at Temple University and has already begun addressing the demographics of the prison population and the mechanics of case flow. The CJCC remains committed to developing strategies to target various segments of the population and add to the development of improved processing techniques. Though we continue to seek additional space, we know we cannot increase prison beds indefinitely. That is why the work of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission, supported by academic research, is so important to ensure that we have a system that operates efficiently and ensures that appropriate options are available. We continue to closely monitor the situation on State Road. The safety of the staff and inmates of the City's Prison System is critically important and we will ensure that it's not compromised. 14 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Through the efforts of the CJCC, the criminal justice system partners will continue their efforts to manage an effective and efficient system that safely provides for all those who come before it. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. I now ask Commissioner King to present his written testimony. COMMISSIONER KING: Good morning, Councilwoman Tasco. As you know, my name is Leon King. I'm the Commissioner of the Philadelphia Prison Systems.

Excuse me a moment, please. Let me recognize Councilman Ramos, who has joined us, Juan Ramos. COMMISSIONER KING: Thank you for providing me the opportunity to testify on this important issue. In recent months, the Philadelphia Prison System has 15 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 successfully managed and processed record numbers of inmates. While we are taking very proactive steps to reduce the stress on the system, the Prison alone cannot control the number of people who are sent to jail, we cannot decide how long they will stay in our custody, and we cannot choose to release or determine the manner of their release. Meanwhile, the various agencies that do play a role in these matters are not under any single person's authority. The solution to this problem requires a comprehensive City-wide effort to study the issue of crime in a way that addresses each layer in the Philadelphia criminal justice system. Just as the police can't arrest their way out of the crime problem, the Prison can't build its way out of the population problem. It should be stated up front that building an additional facility or facilities would not only reduce resources from what independent research 16 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 shows are other more promising crime-prevention efforts, it would also distract our intention and energy away from other more effective crime-reducing measures in Philadelphia. We should not look to the prison, the last stop in the criminal justice system, for solutions, or even the police, for that matter. We should look for solutions in the community, the City's social and physical infrastructure, in the schools, in the economic and labor institutions, in sentencing reform, all while offering families the support they need to remain in stable and happy environments where criminal activity is never tolerated and criminal values are never introduced. Newspapers that focus on the prisons write about mere symptoms and they do not focus on societal problems that form the basis of the crime problem. They contribute to finger pointing and don't see the problem for what it is. It is of some note to consider 17 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 some trends in Philadelphia over the last years. S. 5 percent, 8 37,000 people. In 1993, the population 9 of Philadelphia was greater than the 10 population -- the Philadelphia Prisons 11 was greater than the population in 2006, 12 yet the prison population for each of 13 those years was 4,500 in 1993 and up over 14 8,900 in 2006. The increase in prison 15 population is not explained by any increase in population. There was no 17 such increase in the City. There was a decrease. Also, there has not been an epidemic 100 percent increase in crime in Philadelphia since 1993. In fact, between 1995 and 2005, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for Philadelphia showed a drop from 108,000 to 82,000 major criminal acts annually. Therefore, the 18 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 increase in prison population was not the result of an increase in crime. Crime too decreased. S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs crime-reduction funding, consistent with what Philadelphia experienced. This is further evidence that the solution to crime does not reside in the prison but in comprehensive crime-reduction efforts. Research on mass incarceration has been linked to increased crime over the long term. This occurs because when other sectors of the criminal justice system are not addressed, the conditions in our communities will be ripe for individuals to commit crimes. It is of serious consequence that the more people we arrest, in the long run, the worse the crime situation will become. This seems counterintuitive, but when other crime prevention and social support mechanisms 19 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 aren't focused on, people will invariably commit crime.

This leads to a criminal record, but with this criminal record, it becomes more difficult to find a job upon release from jail, and jobs and employment have been shown to be perhaps the single most promising crime prevention tactic. A second consequence is that while in jail, inmates learn about new criminal opportunities through a network of other criminals. The end result is that with inmates returning to a community that does not have the right foundation to prevent crime through other social mechanisms, we will see a steady increase in the prison population. These are not theories. These are real-life conditions measured in Philadelphia, New York, Texas and Illinois, to name a few. The bottom line is that if we have more beds, we'll just fill them and in two weeks, we'll be in the same place we were before we had extra beds. This 20 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 has been confirmed by criminological research and has been the experience in Philadelphia and other communities across the country. For example, since 2004, we have increased capacity at the Philadelphia Prisons by 1,251 beds. I would say almost a little less than half -- I'm ad-libbing here a little bit -- a little less than half of those were just since the spring. This increase in beds has helped place inmates in a bed sooner, but did not solve any problems in the long run. Detainees kept coming. Nevertheless, an all too familiar effect has happened, we have mitigated the efforts right now, but have not solved the City's long-term crime problems. Through all of the proactive steps the Prison has taken, and including adding more beds, we have addressed some symptoms of the problem, but not the actual problem. It is clear that to improve the 21 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 quality of life for citizens, prevention of crime in the first place -- and I'm going to add here, and providing support to ex-offenders upon release is both socially and economically more advantageous. Since building a new prison is not a viable solution, the City has taken proactive steps to work with the resources we currently have. Along with our criminal justice partners, the City has initiated a 24-point plan to help mitigate the effect of the stressed system. With regard to the recent litigation and claims from Mr. Rudovsky that the conditions at the PPS are unconstitutional, the PPS flatly rejects such claims as categorically incorrect. In Fiscal Year '07, the Prison successfully processed 33,962 inmates at a cost in excess of $2 million.

You want to go back and correct those figures. 22 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 You want to say in 2006 and you want to say $200 million. COMMISSIONER KING: Okay.

Don't you? Why don't you do that again, so the record will be correct. COMMISSIONER KING: With regard to the recent prison population?

With regard to the recent litigation, that sentence. COMMISSIONER KING: With regard to the recent litigation and claims from Mr. Rudovsky that the conditions at the PPS are unconstitutional, the PPS flatly rejects such claims as categorically incorrect. In Fiscal Year '06, the Prison successfully processed 33,962 inmates at a cost in excess of $200 million. Did I get it right that time?

Yes. COMMISSIONER KING: Good. Under my direction, the Prison 23 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 System has taken several bold measures to move forward as a professional correctional centered institution. The Prison seeks to reform through evidence-based programs and policies. We have also initiated a performance measurement unit called CORESTAR that continually monitors things such as restricted movement, overtime expenditures, use of force, assaults and a number of other measures. These measures have been managed effectively and there have been no statistically significant increases that would act as an alarm for unsafe prison operations. The Prison also has several treatment programs and is currently examining the effectiveness of those programs. We aim to have promising programs expanded while programs that don't work we will seek to reform. The Prison System has also increased staff by 16 percent since I took the position as Prison Commissioner. 24 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Before I arrived in the PPS in November of 2002, there were 1,525 correctional officers on duty. As of October 2006, we have 1,767 correctional officers. In July 2006, we had a recruitment drive. A test was administered in September of '06, and we are beginning the process of hiring and training new classes of correctional officers. We have a huge applicant pool, but we can only accept a fraction of those who apply due to the secure environment we operate. Safety and security are our principal concerns and we are forced to accept a narrow margin of those who apply when they meet our rigorous criteria. This is compounded with a regular turnover that our system experiences. This makes the situation challenging. I lost a page. This compounded with a regular turnover that our system experiences makes the situation challenging. Our correctional officer training curriculum 25 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 has been reformed so that our staff is better trained to handle a wider variety of conditions at the prison. In addition to hiring more staff and taking more progressive reforms to the training curriculum, the length of training has increased from weeks to weeks and 9 then again from 11 to 12 weeks. The 10 overall effect has been a larger, more 11 professionally trained correctional staff, perhaps the best Philadelphia has ever had. Two incidents were mentioned in the resolution that brings us here today. These disturbing incidents occurred at a result of several staff members not following policy. Both of these matters are open investigations by the Office of Professional Compliance. I would like to assure the members of this Committee that the Prison maintains a safe and secure environment for both staff and inmates, and that while we have many challenges, we 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 continue to work on improving our conditions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Let me just ask you a couple of questions. Let me recognize Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, a member of this Committee, and Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown. How many correctional officers are in the Philadelphia Prison System? COMMISSIONER KING: 1,767.

Of this number and excluding people who are on IOD, FMLA, family leave, I imagine, detailed to other areas and so forth, how many officers are providing security in our prisons on a daily basis? COMMISSIONER KING: I couldn't give you that answer off the top of my head. I'd have to get back to you on it.

Okay. Considering the number of officers that 27 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 leave the Prison System and that the prison population has gone from over 7,000 in 2003 to almost 9,000 today, what steps are being done to ensure the safety of officers and prisoners by having enough officers to secure prisons? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, right now at the 1,767 as we've testified, that's more officers than we've ever had before. I mean, we are at the Philadelphia Prisons -- the population has increased and the number of correctional officers working there have increased. Not always in step, but as you look at it over time, the number of officers have increased. There's a whole host of things that go on. That's a real broad question that you gave me in regard to what we do. Some of the things that we've done is make sure that we're tracking what's going on. For example, in the summertime when we were having issues with restricted movement and people being 28 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 locked in their cells too long and that became an issue, we opened the overtime spigot, as it were, and began to spend more money on that problem. We issued officers pepper spray probably three years ago to help them with dealing with unruly inmates, and we've seen a decrease in the number of use-of-force incidents, a decrease in the number of officers that are injured and going to the comp clinic, a decrease in the number of inmates who are sent to the hospital as a result of injuries, and there's a whole host of other things that if you'd like me to continue to go on, but the most important thing -- and recruiting and things of that nature, but the most important thing that we need to do is reduce the prison population. Again, probably come by the end of the year, we'll have increased the number of correctional officers above the 1,647. We have 32, I believe, that are ready to start the Training Academy in a 29 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 couple of weeks. We have approval for another 60 that will be starting the Training Academy shortly thereafter, and I anticipate we're going to be continuing to do that. I mean, we continually hire, for the most part, every two weeks. Every ten weeks or weeks now, we 10 graduate a class of correctional staff. 11 The Managing Director assisted us in June 12 when he authorized 150 extra CO's that we hired between April and July. So we're continually hiring. We're continually monitoring what's going on. That's my short answer.

Well, going back to the earlier statement I made about the number of correctional officers who are on duty at their shift -- they work in shifts, right? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes.

I don't know how many are required per shift, but if you have officers who sometimes maybe 30 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 get sick at the last minute, don't show up, somebody is out injured on duty and you have somebody who is out on family leave or some other reason, that does affect your shift, the number of officers working on that shift, right? How do you -- COMMISSIONER KING: Let me --

How do you fill in? Suppose you need officers 12 and ten show up. What happens? 13 COMMISSIONER KING: That's 14 factored into what we call our Post Plan. 15 We have a Post Plan. A post is a station 16 that an officer works in a particular 17 facility, and there's a plan for each 18 jail. There's a plan for the entire 19 system. And when we calculate how many 20 officers we need, we take it into account. There's a formula that we use to take into account how many people will be out sick, how many are going to be on FMLA. So that's taken into account in the number of officers that we hire and 31 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 plan that we need to use at the prisons. That's taken into account.

So you're saying during a course of a shift, you would still end up with the required complement that you need? COMMISSIONER KING: Sometimes, you know, you may have a shift and even though we take that into account, there may be times when not every post in the jail will be open. That happens despite the fact that we take it into account. And when we do that, we have to compensate and close a post or move people around.

And, Councilwoman, I guess I would also add that in terms of the strategy for managing staff at the prisons, I would make the distinction from the strategy that we had discussion about in Council before with respect to the police, and I wouldn't want the strategies to sort of be merged, because in the case of the police, there is 32 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 robust discussion in Council between Council and the Administration about increased staffing versus overtime. With respect to the prisons, as I've testified before in the context of the police budget, with respect to the prisons, we're not seeking to avoid hiring by using overtime. I mean, our strategy is not that. Our strategy is staffing, because we hear the Commissioner and the staff at the prisons that the overtime is an additional stress to the system and the real need is the increased staffing. There's a fair amount of turnover, as you know. So it is -- it's not a case where we're trying to avoid staffing up by using overtime. We support the staffing up and reduction of overtime in this case. COMMISSIONER KING: And part of the challenge that we're facing now, there was an old correctional officer list that expired, I don't know, two 33 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 months ago, and I talked about the recruiting drive. We've not been able to recruit from that list yet, but I know we're working with the Personnel Department to get the list certified so we can start processing people from that list. That's the glitch right now that's holding up the extra 60 that I talked about.

It's a new list? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes.

So how long does the Personnel Department keep a list at least active? COMMISSIONER KING: I think it's two years.

Two years? COMMISSIONER KING: Yeah, but the prior list usually -- now we have this new procedure where you pay to get on the -- to take the test, or whatever it is you do. So we didn't get as many people on the list. And then the 34 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 people -- I don't know. There were a lot of people who just weren't qualified. So we went through the list very, very quickly this last time around. Usually it would last two years. This time it didn't. So we had to go out and recruit again, so now we're at --

Well, if you had people on the old list and you said it expired, what happens to those people who were on the list? COMMISSIONER KING: We've exhausted that list.

Oh, you exhausted the list at that point? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes.

So what you want to do now is keep the list moving and revolving and not have a time space prior to a test, the recruiting and testing -- COMMISSIONER KING: Correct.

-- and qualifying employees? So you want to 35 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 have a list so if you need somebody, you can go to that list? COMMISSIONER KING: Correct. And as I said, people don't realize at the prisons the training time was ten weeks. Now it's weeks. We're 8 graduating officers every 12 weeks. It's 9 not a situation where it's whenever we 10 feel like it or we think there's a need, 11 we recruit. Every 12 weeks we graduate a 12 class.

Mr. Ramos, you talked about this in your testimony, a committee that discusses prison overcrowding, and I notice in Mr. King's testimony he talked about in his first paragraph that we need to have a -- the solution to this problem requires a comprehensive City-wide effort to study the issue of crime in a way that addresses each layer in the criminal justice system. In an overall comprehensive way to address the whole prison overcrowding, 36 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 is this something that the committee does that you talked about?

Yes, ma'am. You'll never hear the Commissioner or I speak of the prison population management without noting how small a portion of the overall system we have responsibility for, as you know. While we have two of the departments sort of within the City Administration part of the government, the police and prisons, we are part of a system, as you know, that involves the courts, probation, parole, public defenders, the district attorneys, bail commissioners. And there's a federal model that relates also to our eligibility for certain federal funds that provides for what's called a Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission, which essentially recognizes that you have this kind of fragmentation of responsibility in the criminal justice system and provides a forum for the various parties to that system to get 37 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 together, work together even though there's no one sort of in charge of the whole thing. The City Solicitor chairs the CJCC. A large part of the partners around the table are the courts, and he's the natural person to interact with the courts and the District Attorney and the other lawyer-intensive agencies that we're dealing with. And as these issues have sort of converged, including the increase -- our dependence on contracted prison spaces, our City Solicitor, Romy Diaz, I think, has taken an extraordinary leadership role with all of those various partners.

Can I just stop you for a minute? Could you just answer for me, what have they come up with to address this issue, all the people who are involved? What are they doing?

In the last nine months, about nine months to a year, the 38 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission has moved from a lot of discussion and updating and information-sharing to actually developing a 24-point plan, and that 24-point plan revolves around what each party to the system can do to better understand the prison population and to better manage the flow of persons in and out of the prisons. For example, we've worked together on implementing out-of-county and out-of-system placement. We've worked together to contract out prison spaces. That's been mostly a City function, but it's been done in coordination with the partners. We've had a request from the Public Defender's Office through that system for increased support beyond their budgeted amounts. They demonstrated that with, I think it was, three additional staff, they could help accelerate the number of people that would leave the prisons if the paperwork and process had just worked a little 39 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 faster on their part. So we supported them having additional staff in the Public Defender's Office dedicated to getting those people that would be out of jail anyway but for the process to get through that process faster. We commissioned a report as a committee to look at the entire population that's in jail and to really understand the demographics of that population. What percentage of that population is there just because they failed to meet low bail, for example, looking what the implications are for sentencing guidelines, looking at what practices are happening at the bail commissioner level, are we following the bail guidelines there. And that report -- there's a report that has been submitted as draft for comment to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee by a Temple University professor named Dr. Goldkamp, and they're in the process of finalizing that report. But that's a 40 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 big part of this because it has everybody around the table, including the courts and the various --

They came up with solutions to these issues?

Well, I think --

Or they just talked about what could happen?

Well, I think that there are some things that are being acted on now as a result of the work that's going on, so it hasn't really awaited the final resolution. For example, in September 11th, the First Judicial District implemented what they called the Accelerated Disposition Program where they staffed up in the Sheriff's Office. They started the hearings earlier. They did a number of things to gear up the court process where they could accelerate trials or have early dispositions. I mentioned more sheriffs. They added some court personnel. 41 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 So there's some things that, as we've come across them, they've been implemented, like the Public Defender's recommendation and the courts accelerated disposition process. We've approved additional monitoring bracelets during the process. One of the things that's noteworthy about the report, I think, in the end will be how the population has changed from the last time such a report was done. For example, at one point there was a fair number of people who were in jail solely because they failed to meet a relatively low bail. That population has changed a lot. We thought that that population would be much bigger than it is. It turns out that for a lot of that population, those individuals have multiple holds on them. So it's not as straightforward as it used to be, that you're just in jail because you failed to come up with a thousand dollars. So we're learning. I think 42 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 it's been eye opening for all the criminal justice partners to go through that. I'm sure at the appropriate time in the maturation of that report, it's something that the Commission would share and discuss with City Council.

Let me just hold off here for a moment. We have all the lights on of the Councilmembers and I know you told me you have a meeting and they may have questions for you, so let me call on Councilwoman Miller. I don't remember whose light was on first.

I just have a follow-up question to Pedro's recent remarks. I did have a question about the data from Temple and how it was either going to help or not help and what would actually come out of this that would be solutions. I want to understand how the data ties into prison overcrowding. For example, using the example you just used, for someone that 43 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 could not make low bail, what would it mean? The data that we've collected, what would it mean to someone that can't make low bail that helps increase the prison population? Would that mean going through all the units that you talk about in the criminal justice system that perhaps the bail commissioners or someone would do something with bail? COMMISSIONER KING: I just want to take a little bit of that and then hand it off to the Solicitor and the Managing Director, but when you're asking these questions and you're thinking about the prison, you have to remember a couple things. One, we're not really a prison, we're a jail. So that means 60 percent of our folks are there because they can't make bail, either it's too high intentionally, it's too low, whatever. The reason that the prisons are crowded is, again, not because crime is up, but because the length of stay is longer. I think it used to be 70 or 80 44 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 days was the average length of stay. Now it's up to 90, 92 days. And what that tells us is that the processing time from the time of arrest until final disposition has increased for various reasons. The Managing Director mentioned the combination of holds. Ten years ago when we did the study, you would get arrested, for example, on a burglary charge. For example, you go to the Bail Commission, they say, Here's your bail, you pay the bail and you're gone. Now you come and you have a burglary arrest and you also have five failure to appears for the other five times you were arrested. So now instead of going before one judge to have everything to be taken care of, you got to go before five judges. So that takes up the time in which you're processed, which means you stay longer, which means the prison population grows. With the bail question that you 45 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 had, if you've got that one low bail, there are a lot of things that we're talking about, and I guess I'd let the Solicitor decide which of the specific points he'd like to get into that would try and shorten up the process for that person who has the multiple holds, so that maybe we have one judge looking at all those things so we can get people out. And there are a lot of process issues in that report. And I'm probably the most impatient person when it comes to the 15 points and everything else, because I 16 have to -- I'm responsible for all the 17 people at the prison, and I have to say 18 that I think we all should be pretty 19 proud of the fact, this is probably the 20 first time that the City on its own, 21 without the courts trying to force us to 22 do anything, got together a year ago and 23 said, We got to make some decisions not 24 based on guesses or educated hunches, we need somebody to come in here who studied 46 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the system before, tell us what the demographics are and then we can begin to moving to do solutions. So it's really something we all should be pretty proud of. And I'm going to stop, but that's my short answer.

Councilwoman, could I ask the Solicitor to supplement the Commissioner's response? The Solicitor chairs the Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission.

Sure.

Good morning. Romulo L. , City Solicitor. If I might follow up on the Commissioner's points, I chaired the first meeting as City Solicitor of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee in May of 2005, and what was clear to me at the time was that there had been a lot of discussion about what was the root cause of the population growth, what was different in terms of the demographics of the population than we had seen 47 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 previously, but we had no empirical data that really gave us a basis for trying to understand what the challenge was that needed a solution or solutions. And at that time, we began to entertain a discussion about what kind of a population study was needed. Ultimately, over the summer of 2005, we in the CJCC made a decision that we thought it was appropriate to have that demographic study, that population study, conducted by Professor John Goldkamp of Temple University. That was the first time in something like 12 years that a demographic study had been done of the Philadelphia prison population. But what also became clear to me at the time -- and I emphasized, and I think other members of the CJCC supported me on it -- was that we really didn't have the luxury of coming up with solely an academic analysis of the population. We wanted some fixes. We wanted some solutions. We wanted some practical 48 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 approaches that reflected the diversity of views on the CJCC. I've often characterized the criminal justice system akin to a water balloon. When you push in at one point on the balloon, it bulges out at another end of that balloon. And that's very similar to what we see today. If we have, for example, increased arrests for offenses or new offenses or new initiatives, we're going to see an impact not only on the courts but also in connection with the prison population as well. One of the factors in particular that we thought was worth keeping mindful of was that of a prison population that has fluctuated in the neighborhood recently around 8,600 to almost 8,900, what we see is that about 5,000 people in that population, which reflects male adults, female adults and juveniles, but when you look at that total population, about 5,000 are 49 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 awaiting trial, which is why we've been looking to develop practical solutions, including the element that was mentioned by the Managing Director a moment ago in connection with the accelerated disposition of those individuals awaiting trial. The First Judicial District has assigned two new trial judges to accelerate that disposition. In the first couple of weeks -- and this was very limited data for an initiative that began September 11 of this year -- we saw the increase in dispositions go up by about 35 percent. Again, that was a limited sampling, first couple of weeks, but that initiative appears to be working. We also have an experienced trial judge, a supervising trial judge, who is handling the more complex cases with an eye toward developing models on how these more complex cases should be tried so that we can also accelerate the 50 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 disposition. That is just one type of initiative that we have underway, which began approximately in June of this year, even while the Goldkamp study was being developed. The CJCC and I believe that we really needed to work in parallel fashion to develop some practical solutions. That was the origin of the so-called 24-point plan. We've also been looking, for example, as part of the 24-point plan at how we might aggregate sentences where there is a minimum requirement for having the persons who are sentenced in Philadelphia County to meet the minimal requirements for being housed in a state penitentiary for their prison sentence.

And so what we've been doing all along since early June is trying to develop in parallel fashion the practical tools that ultimately became the 24-point plan, which was adopted following a couple months of development, adopted at 51 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 a special meeting on August 2nd chaired by Mayor John Street, because it really reflected the importance of senior leadership from throughout the criminal justice system to really buy into these options to make them work, whether it was a budget element that needed to be approved by the City or it was a criminal justice partner who needed to accelerate dispositions or whatever the case might be to make it work. I mention these dates not only to reflect that this is something that has been ongoing, but also to put into context the federal litigation which was commenced on or about July 25th of this year. By the time that lawsuit was filed, the City had already developed the draft 24-point plan, which was adopted the following week at the meeting I mentioned chaired by Mayor Street. So we have been working, as Commissioner King mentioned a moment ago, for well over a year to develop what we 52 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 believe to be a practical solution that is not solely focused, as some perhaps would want us to be focused, on bricks and mortars. I totally agree with the point expressed earlier that if we build them, they will come, and we've got to look for new approaches. That's what we're doing. We're seeing early progress. We must continue our efforts to implement. And so far, the support and buy-in from all of the partners in the criminal justice system, I think, has been superb and we continue to implement the 24-point plan today. Thank you.

I have one question about the state. What is the status of the state taking the inmates?

My recollection, Councilwoman, is that of the first matters that were filed in connection with the aggregated sentences, that they 53 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 were either approved or they were approved with the orders held in abeyance to allow us to have an opportunity to work directly with the state prison system. This is not something that we would want to spring on them any more than we would like to have it sprung on us, but so far, the First Judicial District has been supportive of that concept, which was an added element. In fact, we had a 23-point plan until the issue of aggregated sentences was proposed by the District Attorney's Office was adopted, and now that is also moving forward as well.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, gentlemen. COMMISSIONER KING: Good 54 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 morning.

Good morning.

I would like to shift the conversation or discussion back to the challenge you have around recruitment. Do any of the points deal 9 with the issue of recruitment at all? 10 COMMISSIONER KING: I don't 11 think so. 12

Do not. 13 Talk to me a little bit briefly about -- 14

If I may interject. 15 I'm sorry, Councilwoman. I assume you're 16 talking about recruitment of prison 17 personnel? 18

Of 19 correctional officers. Yes, yes, yes. 20

No, it does not. 21

I'm always 22 interested in the pipeline and how we get 23 young people in particular in the 24 pipeline, knowing that we have young people coming out of high schools all the 55 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 time who have done the right thing, who had decent grades and are looking for a way to earn an honest living. So speak to me briefly about the pipeline, the recruitment process. Bullets, if you will. COMMISSIONER KING: Well, the recruitment process begins at a time when Personnel let's us know we're getting toward the end of whatever list that we're using. Then we activate what's called our recruitment team, and the recruitment team, in conjunction with advertisements and things in the newspapers, goes out to the neighborhoods and collects applications and shows the Prison System and convinces people that it's a good place to work and that they should apply. Once that has occurred and they paid their $35 fee, at some point -- I think last time we had about a month to recruit. I think it was the month of July, something like that -- the cut-off 56 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 date is given. Then Personnel processes all those applications. They take the test. People are ranked. When the test is certified, then we have to have an orientation. We usually have that done at the public library. Probably 400 or 500 people come for that, just to explain in more detail of what we do at the prisons. Then after that, that's when the process gets a little more complicated for people, because then you have to fill out your PDQ, I think it's called. It's all the questions about everything you've ever done in life, and also take a lie detector test. And those things wash a lot of people out.

I'm sure it starts to wean folk, if you will. COMMISSIONER KING: It starts to wean the people out, because there's a lot of people who think it's okay to be a CO and smoke marijuana or do other things, and they write that down. 57 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Okay. What's the starting age for a correctional officer? COMMISSIONER KING: I believe it's 19. No; 20.

Any linkages, any thought given to a strategic partnership with the Community College of Philadelphia for folks who are in two-year programs looking for a way to earn money, want to pursue the criminal justice system as a career and this potentially being an entry point? COMMISSIONER KING: No, I hadn't thought of that.

So I would offer that up for serious consideration, because I know it works, having done a lot of work in recruitment in another life. I do not know this to be factual, so I'm simply stating observation made from other testimony. There's an observation that over 150 58 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 correctional officers decided to leave the Philadelphia Prison System. Is that true, and if true, what reasons would you cite for that kind of large number leaving the system at one time, if that is indeed factual? COMMISSIONER KING: That's not true. We didn't have 161 people leave at one time. We have an attrition rate of about eight to ten a month. So if you multiple that out, that's about 120 people, if you take it at the ten a month. That's what we normally lose a year. So that is figured into how many people go into a class, et cetera. Now, we did have -- in early '07 (sic), there were a lot of people who left to go to the Sheriff's Department all at once, but it wasn't 161. The Sheriff was actively recruiting. It was partly because of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee and his need to staff up to open the courtrooms to reduce the population. So we had a bit of a 59 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 spike in July for people who were leaving to go to the Sheriff's Department, but it was not 161 people.

Finally, Councilwoman Marian Tasco is a member of the National League of Cities wherein professionals in elected and appointed office convene periodically throughout the year and simply share what's happening in their cities in different areas. So with other professionals that you network with nationwide, if you had to ID a city that sort of gets it right for whatever that is -- and that's relative when it comes to managing this kind of large system -- what city would you look at as a prospective model to emulate in moving to where you want this 24-point plan to go to? COMMISSIONER KING: Philadelphia. I mean, I go to -- we have the Association of State Correctional Administrators. We have the American 60 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Jail Association. I don't know of any other city in the entire country that's doing what we're doing. I mean, this is really -- the last time I talked to some correctional professionals that was in New Jersey, their state correctional system, and they have a problem there where, I think, 40 percent of their inmates max out. They have no reentry plan for them. They just sort of max out in their sentence, they give them a token and they go back to Newark or wherever it is they came from. And when I mentioned over there what we were doing here, they were amazed. Well, how did you all do that? I mean, I think -- and I'm not being facetious here -- that we're really on the right track here. I mean, we've looked -- even the expert that the inmates hired in the federal litigation, they said, What would you do, and he basically rattled off what we're doing here in Philadelphia. I really think 61 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 that we're ahead of the game and the curve here in Philadelphia with what we're doing.

Is overcrowdedness a challenge in other of those top ten cities? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes. We are not unique in the problem of overcrowding. You go to New York, you go to Los Angeles, you go to California, you go to New Jersey. During the time that we were looking for extra beds in the past year, every county in Pennsylvania is full and has no room. It's not unique. There's some building going on in other, but every major city has this problem.

Councilwoman, if I may just follow up, because I think in fairness to my client, I should point out that when we talk about overcrowding as the Commissioner just did, we're really talking about not as desired in terms of our deployment of the personnel in the 62 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 system. It is certainly not an indication that somehow we believe that we fall short of either legal or constitutional requirements, which have been alleged. We believe that we can do better and we're working to do better, but we certainly are meeting what we also believe to be the legal standards associated with the management of our prison population. COMMISSIONER KING: We have in addition to this 24-point plan in the last four years, the prisons have been accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare for our healthcare that we provide at the prison. We're getting ready to start accreditation for the American Correctional Association. So we're moving forward in the prison. There are a lot of challenges. We have challenges with staffing and the population, but we continue to move forward at the prison. So there's a lot 63 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 of things going on here in Philadelphia that other people aren't doing.

Just a couple more questions, Madam Chair. And to your statement that there's always room for improvement, if we had to exempt and remove the issue of overcrowdedness and the issue of not enough new recruits in the pipeline, what grade would you give? And for sure it's unfair to reduce an issue of this scale simplistically to a grade, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. So if you had to give a grade on where you are and factor in what the City Solicitor has just said with regards to improvement, I'm curious to know what would that grade be. COMMISSIONER KING: You mean what grade would I give the Prison System?

Yes. COMMISSIONER KING: I think we are an A. I think we're a fantastic organization. People snicker, but given 64 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 all the things that we have to deal with, all the inmates that we deal with, 33,000 admissions a year or whatever, the indicators that we look at, use of force, assaults, none of that stuff is up. Most months it's down, and that indicates to me that all the people are doing a fantastic job dealing with the challenges that we have to deal with in running a safe and secure system. If not, you would see indicators on assaults, use of force and other things that skyrocket. You don't see them, and we monitor them and we know that.

My final question. Again, an allegation. I have not a clue whether or not it's factual, but what is done to separate inmates who indeed have mental health issues separating them from hard-core criminals? COMMISSIONER KING: Some of the people with mental health problems are hard-core criminals, but there's a whole host of things. We have a Mental Health 65 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Unit in the Detention Center that houses the chronic medically ill. I believe that's less than 100 beds there. We have several transitional or step-down units for people who have gone through that process in the Acute Unit to deal with those people. Now, that doesn't mean that we're able to deal with all the people who have mental health issues, because out of the 8,815, I think it's 1,500 of them are on the mental health caseload. We're aware that that is a problem and there are -- we took a major initiative to go up to New York and we've been to other jurisdictions, because we want to develop another type of unit, because there are people who are chronically mentally ill and there are people who have behavioral problems. This is what the mental health people tell me. People who are self-destructive, who are self-mutilators, things of that nature. And we're working to develop another sort 66 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 of unit where we put those types of inmates and give some special training to the correctional staff so they have a chance to deal with those.

Indeed. COMMISSIONER KING: So there are a lot of options that we have to segregate the mental health population and we're continuing to work on those. Not perfect, but we continue to work on that. It's an issue that's not lost on us, and we have quite an extensive partnership with all the people in the City that deal with mental health working on that problem.

I would like to finish where I started, and when we look and consider the number of young people out of work, it requires government to work smarter and more strategically in forming partnerships with those who are in the business of training, like PWDC and Philadelphia OIC and Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs 67 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Coalition, to fix that very doable challenge, the issue of recruitment and a continuing pipeline. I mean, human resource professionals know how to keep a continuing pipeline so as soon as the need is there, you have five or six candidates who have met all the other criteria that you just mentioned who are in the waiting for a job. Thank you for your testimony. COMMISSIONER KING: Thank you.

Councilman Ramos.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Both the Managing Director and the Prison Commissioner both gave me some very good insight of how you're working on carrying out some remedies for the overcrowding in our system, and I do know that overcrowding and security are linked together, but I did not hear either one of you use the word "security" much during your testimony. 68 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 (Applause.)

I did not mean that as a negative, because you indeed presented the issue as an overcrowding issue that I know is at the heart of security. One of the statistics that you did mention was -- I think it was you, Commissioner -- that in the last six months, this increase -- the Managing Director, you made reference that he had allowed for more correctional officers to be hired and I believe you referred to it that you had done this in the last six months; is that correct? COMMISSIONER KING: I believe it was from April to July.

April to July. Was that due to the published reports in the newspapers and some people from within the system? I believe at one point -- and I don't have a quote here -- but I believe at one point Local 159 brought out that they concurred with some 69 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 public reports in our daily newspaper that there was a volatile situation, that there was in fact a security problem in the prisons. Was it because of those reports, those public reports, that you went on to hire the additional correctional officers and, if so, in doing so, were you able to bring down a security problem, or do you concur with those reports and some of the statements made by people from within the Prison System?

Councilman, let me take part of that question as to the support for additional staffing. I would refer you to the record of City Council during our budget testimony in the context of the Police Department's budget where we had a very extensive discussion in City Council about straight time versus overtime, and in the context of talking about police, we talked about prisons and why we had a different 70 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 approach with respect to prisons, and the Administration -- and I speaking for the Administration -- articulated the position that on prisons, that our continuing approach has been to staff up because we thought the overtime was not good, from a personnel management perspective or from a financial perspective. So in terms of when our continued support for maintaining higher level of staffing at the prisons, I would refer to that as a moment in time where we've sort of been on the record here at City Council but prior to the stories that you're mentioning. COMMISSIONER KING: And just I would have Council understand that this staffing issue isn't something that we look at only when there's an article in the newspaper. Staffing is an ongoing conversation that we're having with the Managing Director's Office, the Budget Office. And in answer to your question, 71 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 no. The increase, the 150 people that we got in April, didn't have anything to do with any newspaper article. It was something that we were planning all along. It just so happened that it all got started and we were able to get it off the ground when we did in April. I think that's when we actually started the class, but as I said, there's a whole process to getting the people there that started a long time before that.

Did we in fact have a volatile situation during the summer in any of your prisons or jails? COMMISSIONER KING: I would not use the word "volatile," but I was very, very concerned during the summer about what was going on at the prison, especially back in June, because we had record numbers of inmates at the prison. The staff was upset with the overtime restrictions that were there. There were a lot of things going on that made me very concerned, and as a result of that, 72 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the extra staff was coming and then I went back to the Managing Director and said, You have to allow us to spend beyond the overtime limits that we had, and he allowed me to do that, and we also had a process of rolling admissions in the summer. And that was because we were following the numbers, and it indicated that things were increasing at that point. So we took those steps. We brought the extra people on. We increased overtime spending, I think it was, probably around $650,000 to $700,000 a pay period. We went up over the summer. We were spending 950 to a million dollars every two weeks on overtime, and my sense of after we did those things and I walked around and talked to people, that the situation changed and the, I guess, stress level or the concern level of the staff and myself went down as opposed to where it was in June. 73 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

So you do concur with some of the newspaper reports and some of the statements made from people within the Prison System that we did have a security concern in some of the facilities in our prison? COMMISSIONER KING: I was concerned with the security and everything that was going on therein, very concerned in June. That's why I took the action that I did.

And according to your testimony and, again, both of you put it within the framework overcrowding, it seems like some certain measures have been taken, including the oversight committee that the Solicitor is involved in. You're here this morning. Is our inmate population, our staff, vendors, the other people that work in our prisons, are they safe right now as you testify? Is that a safe environment right now? 74 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 COMMISSIONER KING: The environment at the prisons is safe, but you have to remember that it's a prison. It's not your house, my house. We have a lot of dangerous people there, and you're never going to have a prison where nothing goes wrong.

I understand the latter. Are you saying that right now within the framework of what you just lastly said that this is in fact a safer day in our Prison System than it was on those days when there were reports that were published? Is it safer today than it was three months ago? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Let me just follow up on that. Do you still have cells that are overcrowded and people sleeping in the waiting areas and that kind of thing, which has an impact on security? Is 75 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 every inmate assigned to a cell now? COMMISSIONER KING: Every inmate is assigned to a bed, except those inmates that are in the receiving room, however long the receiving room at CFCF or maybe at RCF or if we have to open other receiving rooms, but every inmate there has a bed.

Where is the bed located? COMMISSIONER KING: The beds are located all over the Prison System.

They are not in a cell or are they in corridors or in -- COMMISSIONER KING: No. 18

-- unsecured sites? COMMISSIONER KING: No. 21

Did you say no? COMMISSIONER KING: No. 24

So all of the beds are in secured sites where the 76 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 officers would not feel that they are unsafe? COMMISSIONER KING: There are a lot of different -- we have six different facilities and three little satellite buildings, and a lot of them are all set up differently. So, for example, at the Detention Center, one of the areas that most concerns us is the dorm area, and that's where you have -- we've had up to 230 people in a dormitory style area with bunk beds and a big space, lots of people, and that's probably the area that concerns us the most in the Prison System, and I know that it's one of the areas that's often mentioned by the union. When we sent 100 inmates to Monmouth County, we were able to reduce three of those dorms down to 192 people. So we've reduced the issues and challenges on those areas. We've had to add beds at the House of Correction. It was a jail -- 77 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 originally the way we housed people was two to a cell. We have three to a cell at the House of Correction. In CFCF, that building was originally designed, I think, for 2,600 -- 2,100 people, I think, something like that. We've got 2,800 people in there. Some of them are in blue boats, tripled celled in the intake area, and there are other similar examples. In CFCF, we had rooms where social workers used to work. Under court supervision, we put toilets, we put beds, we put inmates, and that's the way we have to deal at the prison because, again, we do not have the opportunity to say, Don't send us any more people, and we can't release people. So when they send them, we have to find places to put them. But every inmate, unless you're in one of the receiving rooms for a period of time, has a bed to sleep in and they're under some sort of security, whether it's some of them are in cells, 78 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 some of them are in dormitory areas, but all of them are in an enclosed, secure area that's locked.

Let me just ask you to not leave. We will come back to this. We're going to allow our Controller to speak. Then what I'd like to do is to bring up some of the individuals who have requested to testify so that we can get another perspective and then have you come back and respond to some of the concerns raised by these individuals. And we'd like for you to stay so you can hear, and the same thing with you, Romy. I know you may have to leave, Mr. Managing Director, but if you could come back since you are a policy person and control, to some measure, the purse strings and decisions that are made about what goes on at these prisons. We certainly need to have you here to hear what's going on.

Madam Chairwoman, I 79 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 appreciate your leave for me to go to the commitment that I mentioned to you. I certainly have staff here taking notes, and I hope to be back before the hearing is over, but we'll also be in communication here, so should you need me, there will be somebody here from my office and they'll pull me out of that meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Butkovitz, would you like to come present your testimony. He's the City Controller. And then I'm going to call up some members from the union and some employees from the Detention Center and the House of Corrections. Thank you so much for your testimony.

Good morning, Councilwoman Tasco and members of the Public Health Committee and members of 80 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 City Council. First I'd like to introduce Drae Jones, who is a Policy Director in the Controller's Office, who has done an excellent job of preparing a report that we will be releasing this week addressing the overcrowding issue. So I wanted to give her an opportunity to meet the Council.

Good morning.

Good morning and welcome.

Thank you.

The next thing I would like to say is, I would like to take a moment to recognize the work the correction officers have done during this long, hot summer. We had an opportunity to go out to the prison and to witness some of the conditions that have been discussed, the 12 to 16 people in holding cells, the possibility of people getting showers, people being held in the gym area where only two women correction 81 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 officers were in there with about 80 male inmates. I think they showed tremendous courage and stamina in going to work every day, and they really used their wits in keeping people calm. Some of the facilities weren't air conditioned. You had 30 or 40 people in a fenced-in area without any cool air on some of those very hot days. So it's both a tribute to their using their wits and it's miraculous that there was not a serious, violent incident in the prisons during the summer. I'd like to talk about the approach that our office is taking to this problem. I mean, there's really only two approaches ultimately to managing this problem, and, that is, the construction of new facilities or a significant reduction of the numbers of people that we're holding in the Philadelphia jail. We've chosen to focus on the second problem. According to latest census 82 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 numbers available, Philadelphia's current inmate population of approximately 8,900 is an all-time high. An increase in violent crime, coupled with a public that is demanding longer sentences for violent crimes and a pressurized judiciary, are all contributing factors. There's no 9 magic wand that solves this problem, but we have developed several initiatives, one of which has to do with a determination to shift resources from Prisons to better supervision through Probation and Parole. Currently, the City has 275 probation and parole officers in the Adult Probation and Parole Department. They're responsible for monitoring 50,000 offenders, many of which have multiple cases. The standard in the industry for probation and parole caseloads is one officer to 35 cases. Now, you can see in that kind of situation an officer could have pretty good control of the person that he's responsible for. That's an 83 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 ideal. Pennsylvania is far from the ideal. The Pennsylvania ratio is one to 75. Philadelphia ratio is one to 182. So it's clear that we are not serious about making probation and parole in Philadelphia an effective way to monitor people short of having them released into the community. Philadelphia has ranked No. 1 by a very large majority in Pennsylvania in the number of -- in this ratio. The second approach that we are suggesting is the provision of multiple bail sites. Right now the City only has one bail site at the Criminal Justice Center, and it's convenient for purposes of maintaining records, but it is very difficult for people who have to bail out friends or relatives, particularly if they have to rely on public transportation. We've calculated it. It can be a four-hour trek up to the Northeast after posting bail to CJC, and this adds 84 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 to the delays in release. Also, the City does not have electronic transfers or faxing of bail documents. Therefore, the person who posts the bail has to go to the CJC, bring their cash or their real estate certification, get the bail bond, take that from Center City to the Northeast by subway or bus. It's a problem that in this era of technology is relatively easy to solve. Finally, there is an issue of improved document monitoring and preparation. One of the central complaints that we keep hearing over and over again is that the incarceration documents forwarded with inmates are inaccurate.

The Public Defender's Office has repeatedly provided cases of people who were held in jail for a couple days, for as long as ten days because they were ordered to be released on the day of their hearing and yet it was written down as a date ten days into the future. 85 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 So this is a matter that can be controlled with better editing and supervision. It's silly. It's unconscionable for people to be sitting in jail because that kind of clerical error. As Commissioner King suggested, or I guess it was Solicitor Diaz, something like 60, 65 percent of the inmates in the Philadelphia jails are not adjudged guilty of anything. They are just waiting for trial. So when they get a hearing and they get a release date, they should get released. I guess that's my statement.

Thank you very much. Are there any questions for the Controller? Councilwoman Brown.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Given very 86 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 compelling but in many ways contradictory observations as provided by the previous panel, as a gauge for me, exempting the issue of overcrowding, which there's clear differences, and the issue of lack of adequate number of correction officers, what would be your grade?

What would be my grade?

Yes, for the Philadelphia Prison System as it currently is operating. Did you hear the previous testimony of the three gentlemen?

Yeah.

We partially heard it, Councilwoman.

It depends on how you curve it. Either a C or a D. D, I would think. (Applause.)

So you would have thought a curve factor, right?

Yeah. 87 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

And so for those who are here who may not fully understand the role of the City Comptroller's Office as it relates to looking at any and all City agencies, state what it is so that we can put your testimony in perspective.

What's my role? Our job is to check agencies, look at the mission, their stated mission, and rationally and in a business-like way determine how much progress they are making towards achieving those objectives. The Prisons Department has been engaged in this study with private consultants. They are very, very close to the vest with the findings and the statistics. They are kind of running out the clock on that, so we don't have access. A lot of the things they're talking about, they're going to unveil in a way that it is difficult to check or second guess. We have to develop our 88 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 own --

Measurement sticks.

-- information through direct inspection, through conversation with people who are involved in the system, through checking alternative ways of handling this problem at other localities, and really we're just coming at it completely independently. This is a constant complaint that I have with a number of agencies, because I do think that if they would incorporate the idea of constructive criticism and having another pair of eyes look at these things who do not have the motivation of justifying or explaining a way past behavior, that we would make stronger advances in improving these issues, but it is what it is.

As a part of your evaluation process, do you also sit down with the leadership of these 89 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 agencies?

Yes.

Has the 24-point plan been shared with your office?

No. 8

Have you requested to see it?

I just heard about it today. I was actually kind of confused about what it was, because I would think if you come into a legislative hearing, you would want to make your three points, or whatever the points are, and I would have thought that at least something would be distributed explaining what the points are. 19

Is it 20 customary for departments to share with 21 you that type of information? 22

No. No. 23 There's a tug of war between us and the 24 departments generally, and I'm sure they want to be in control of the spin when 90 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 they release their own proposal, but I suppose that is supposed to make it more difficult for critics and outside observers to have meaningful input into it. We try not to let it discourage us. We just start from a zero base about what makes -- in some ways, it unfetters us, because we're not burdened by having to incorporate that point of view. We just kind of look at it fresh, see what makes sense, and we are working during my administration to try to be quick about having our opinions out there during the time the policy is being made and not just after the fact.

My final question is, if it's fair to say then that the role of the City Comptroller's Office does not rest purely with the evaluation of financials, but also program service delivery as well?

Well, that's what the important thing is. I mean, the reason looking at financial records is 91 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 important is because everything the City does, it does through the expenditure of money, and if you waste money, then you have less money to do what's important to do. But the City is not in the business of making a profit. The City is in the business of keeping people from being killed, keeping people safe, making sure people get to the hospital on time, making sure the trash gets collected. So that the measurements that are relevant to our people is, how is all of that working, how can that work better, how can it work within the amount of money that we have available for it without raising taxes through the roof. And that's all part of our function.

Well, thank you very much for your testimony. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Would you see a role as Controller being one of participating in 92 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 the solution to problems as opposed to being the critic of the --

Yes.

So do you think it would have been a good idea for you to be part of this Criminal Justice Coordinating Council --

Yes.

-- to have your input into that?

Yes, but I suspect that there will be resistance until people get used to the idea of where we're coming from. Because nobody likes to be audited, nobody likes to see IRS stop at their doorstep, and the assumption is that you're looking to get me and to be a career killer and a problem, and inevitably part of what we do ends up criticizing what is. And the way things work in this political system, people end up getting slapped around for things that weren't perfect. So we have to point out 93 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 problems in order to point out better ways to do it, but we try not to be vilifying people or we're not in the business of destroying careers or reputations. We do think we can find a better way to handle these, and, yeah, I would welcome an opportunity to be part of that conversation.

When were you at the prison? When did you have your visit?

I was at the prison, I believe it was, in July.

Have you been back?

Actually, I tried to go there on the 4th of July and they wouldn't let me -- we tried to do a surprise inspection because we thought that might be the high point of the problem, and, of course, the Commissioner met us and said that he couldn't provide security for us and we'd have to go home and give him a couple days' advanced 94 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 warning. And they kind of took us to the areas that they wanted to take us, and nevertheless, we observed the kinds of conditions that we discussed. Now, there were people who were prison guards who said that there were conditions in other rooms that we weren't allowed to see that had greater problems. There was this whole question about housing in closets. We were shown a room 12 that had been formerly a utility storage area, which was a relatively spacious room, and we were told that that was what was meant by "closets." Now, there are inmates who claim, no, they meant closets like broom closets. So we were never able to figure that out because we didn't have the run of the place. We couldn't get them to open all the closets and see if anybody was actually housed in those conditions, but I think that would be a pretty critical question to clarify with the correction officers. I think if people 95 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 are actually being held in that heat in closets, that would be something that would be important for the Council to figure out.

If you were the Prison Commissioner, what would you do? What would be your resolution to this issue? I mean, we talked about why more people are going into the criminal justice system.

I mean, I would fight for the budget necessary to get the population level down to what was reasonably safe levels. I wouldn't be taking chances on lives. All these things come down to budget issues and to being subsumed under the Administration's overall budget criteria. So I believe the Police Commissioner, the Prison Commissioner, all the department heads are in a tough spot, because they got to speak up, even though they get orders from on highest to what their number is supposed to be. The 96 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 first thing you got to do is make a brutally honest assessment of what the need and the dangers are, and I think that you have to talk to your front-line people, the correction officers, in an environment in which they are not discouraged from being frank but where they are actually encouraged to list all of the specific problems, and then you got to figure out what is my capacity in this particular room and what is the capacity -- one of the ideas we talked about during the summer was the idea of renting space in some of the New Jersey counties, which is something that has been discussed. I don't know if it's one of their points or not. I don't know 19 if they had any luck. 20

They went 21 to Monmouth. 22

They went 23 where? 24

To Monmouth County. 97 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Monmouth County. You have to figure out how much space can be rented at what distances and what the budget cost for this is, because these problems are remediable for money. And then I would be a little -- I would be more expedited in this analysis of what the prison population is, because we were told that the computer system at the prison, we were told by the Commissioner, is not capable of providing quick answers to the kinds of questions that they're posing. For example, how many people are being held in the Philadelphia jails because they couldn't make bail. Nobody knows the answer to that. Now, you would think that that would be an easy question to answer, but you have to write a very specific program query, and then you'll get -- one of the things that we wanted to do that we weren't allowed to do was a flow chart of measuring when people arrive at the jail and how long it 98 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 takes -- even to take a sampling of a couple of days and measure how long it takes people to work through that system, and also to do a sampling. If you can't get actual hard data from the computers, again, you could take a month's worth of cases or a week's worth of cases, everything that got sent up there on a particular week, and figure out what percentage of those people were people that couldn't make bail, what percentage of people were there because they were really drug offenders or how many were there on spouse abuse orders, how many were there because of non-payment of child support, how many were there because they're being housed for violent offenses. If you can't get 100 percent correct data, there are sampling techniques that are recognized that could give you a pretty good guess as to what that configuration is. Then I think you sit down with the Mayor and with the Councilmembers and 99 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 you say, Here -- maybe the Controller, and you say, Here is the data. Does anybody have any ideas about how we can separate and triage this problem? Because all human problems are solvable by breaking them down into smaller bite-sized pieces. Anything that comes at you overwhelmingly cannot be handled. But there could be a decision, for example, that at the height of overcrowding, that there would be a moratorium on sending people to the jail for non-payment of child support or for Traffic Court offenses. Right now we don't know how many that is. There could be some special discount bail program if it turns out that bail is the problem. We're sitting here five months after the crisis and people are still talking in theoretical terms about what the construction of the prison population is. Well, it shouldn't be a mystery. The people in the Corrections Department have ownership of that data. Now, if 100 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 they don't know how to extract it from their computer, they could work on other kinds of sampling techniques or they could have cooperated with our request to let us look at their data and help them.

And you got no response?

We got a very defensive response. We got very limited kinds of responses. We got a lot of sales pitch about what their point of view was about how it should be handled, and we were told that most of this analysis is in the hand of their own consultant who is going to come up with some great solution and we should just stay tuned.

Any other questions or comments? (No response.)

Commissioner, before he leaves -- and this may not be your question because we also know that we have a hierarchical 101 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 system here where the Managing Director and the Administration really have some jurisdiction over what goes on in your department, but could we get your take on the Controller's comments? COMMISSIONER KING: I did take some notes. I would say all those -- I can't think of one thing that the Controller said that the City is not doing already. All those things that he talked about -- our computer system is slow, but Dr. Goldkamp was able to access our system, the court system, all the partners in the criminal justice systems, all the computers. It was a laborious task. That's part of the reason it took so long to download those things. He did in fact do a snapshot of the inmate population in November, I think it was, of '05 to determine the flow, how long it takes, what the impediments are. All those things that the Controller talked about we're doing. With regard to Probation and 102 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Parole, that's one of the -- I believe it's one of the points of the 24-point 4 plan, trying to figure out how we can 5 realign their staff or hire more staff. 6 We're actually having ongoing meetings 7 with the Mayor on part of this, because 8 part of it, as I've said in all my 9 testimony, reentry, supporting offenders, 10 making sure they're supported. 11 We have a new partnership up at 12 the prison with Probation and Parole, and 13 just last week -- and this is part of 14 what the Controller also said that 15 everybody in City government has to 16 consider. We talked to Mr. Malvestuto 17 and Mr. Snyder, who run the Probation and 18 Parole Department. As a matter of fact, 19 we're meeting with them again on 20 Wednesday. And they talked about those 21 national statistics concerning about how 22 many people you're supposed to supervise 23 and how big the caseloads are of a lot of 24 those probation officers. And in order to get those caseloads in line, it is the 103 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 estimate of the Probation Department that it will cost the City $20 million. So we're not talking small change here. That's a lot of money given all the things that the City has to do, and we're looking at those things. In regard to looking at the space and how many people can fit there and the leasing opportunities, we're doing all that. The problem is, there aren't many places for us to house inmates. We've canvassed every county in Pennsylvania, every county in Delaware, every county in New Jersey. We've gotten, I think, two or three leads there. I even sent our consultant down to Maryland, see if he could find some bed space, because we understand the border is an hour and a half away. So we're looking at every place that we can do. We're looking in the City for additional space until we can reduce the population, and the issue there is, nobody wants a prison in their 104 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 neighborhood. CEC is a place at D and Erie where we were going to contract for 200 beds and we had some controversy that came up as a result of the fact that people in the neighborhood, even though that's already -- there's Bucks County inmates there, there's state county inmates, they didn't want Philadelphia inmates there. So those are the challenges you face. It's not so much, Okay, how much housing do we need. We can figure that out. Where it's going to be is a challenge and getting the people in that neighborhood or that county. Even one of the counties in New Jersey where we looked, we initially had an agreement and then they said, Well, there's an election coming up, we don't want this issue percolating into the election, come back to us after November 7th. So on November 8th, somebody will be calling that county to look for additional space. 105 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES.

060711 But the City Controller has some very good ideas, and I would say -- I wrote them down -- we're doing all of those things. One of the initiatives with the IT system at the prison, it's been there a long time. We have a new interim plan called the Axiom System that's going to be -- because one of the things, I want to be in a position next spring where I can answer these questions more quickly, because it is very difficult to get to them. We have that up and running. We spent a considerable amount of money getting that interim sort of data-gathering system in place. And we're working with MOIS to work on a long-term fix for the system. But all of those things that he talked about, the City is already doing. Dr. Goldkamp, he's not -- he came here ten years ago. We got to know him because Judge Shapiro hired him to look at the City's criminal justice system 106 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 back in 1995, and there were a lot of other people on that committee who thought he would be good, because he knows the system, he knows where we were ten years ago, and if it weren't for some of the recommendations he came up with at that time, we'd have a lot more inmates than we do. The only thing that I would take issue with that the Controller said that I think is impossible, you can't give -- because the prisons do not control who comes, who goes and when they leave. You could give us trillions of dollars and we'd still have people coming to -- I would love to have the authority to say, The limit at the prison is X number and we are not taking any more prisoners. But what happens then is, as happened in the summer when we did that for a little bit, the police districts get backed up. The Warrant Unit isn't able to arrest people and bring them to the jail. There's a whole host of people 107 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 that feed the Prison System, the Sheriff's Department, the Warrant Office, other jurisdictions, and the citizens I don't think are going to stand for a situation where we reach a situation where we tell the police to stop arresting people. The police need to arrest, and as the Controller says, we need to be very creative about what we do. But all those things that he mentioned, we're doing. We're in the process of doing all of them. And I understand from your perspective as the legislative body -- as I said, I'm probably the most impatient person about these issues, and I'd love to see them move much quicker, but the fact is, if you said, Commissioner King, you're now in charge of the criminal justice system and I could order the judges what to do and the DA what to do, then we'd probably get quicker results, but I don't have that authority, the Mayor doesn't have 108 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 that authority. And the Controller is also right, this has a lot to do with budgets, and City Council and the Mayor have to work together to decide if we're going to spend $20 million on getting the Probation Department up to the staffing levels that they want, what are you not going to do with the million that 10 you're going to spend on Probation and 11 Parole. 12 Now, the argument may be that 13 you're going to save on bed space because 14 you're going to reduce recidivism and 15 you're going to reduce the number of 16 people who come to the prison, but you 17 would have to make that calculation, and 18 the government would have to be willing 19 to say, Yes, we're going to invest $20 20 million for more probation officers. I don't think that's a bad idea, but it's not -- I'm not in control of the money. That's for you and the Mayor to decide.

If I could respond. 109 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Mr. Butkovitz.

First of all, I never said that the Philadelphia jail would just unilaterally stop accepting people. I said if we assessed how many people the capacity was in that jail, we could triage and determine which policies ought to be implemented, such as the -- we could then lobby for the non-incarceration of people who are not current on their child support orders or other classifications. I never said we were just going to lock the doors. Secondly, our analysis indicated the cost of 100 more probation or parole officers would be about five and a half million dollars a year, not $20 million. That would reduce the ratio from one to 182 to about one to 109. COMMISSIONER KING: I said to get down to the standard, one to 50.

To get down one to 35? 110 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 COMMISSIONER KING: Yes. That's how much it would cost.

But the point of the matter is, we could make a lot of progress getting close to the Pennsylvania figures. And the other thing that we're going to have to do in terms of our analysis is consider the alternative, which is prison construction and prison staffing are among the largest inflation factors in budgets these days. So if you're just going to project what inmate populations are going to be and we're going to be issuing bonds to build more prisons and paying interest on those bonds, what we need to do is calculate what that cost will be in our annual budget versus the cost of the additional probation and parole officers. And we have a variety of other initiatives that will be included in our report released in a few days, including the creation of specialized mental health courts and 111 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 other things which will separate out specific-needs inmates who can be treated in a less intrusive way than just being in with the general jail population. But we do have to start looking at this in terms of whether our dollars can go further and be more effective in dealing with people who are not violent offenders in other ways. And the other point that I would make is that you cannot just keep piling people into the jails, because what will happen is that there's going to be inevitably a federal court order, just as there was back in the early '90s, that says that Philadelphia will have to open its jail doors and let people out and let people out that none of us would want running around the neighborhoods, and we will have lost control of that decision-making by not making that decision ourselves. So this is not one of those Richard Nixon decisions that either we 112 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 surrender or we bomb Red China. The point of the matter is, if we don't start to take control of this problem in a rational way, we're going to have the very thing that we are most afraid of, which is they're going to be opening the jail doors for very dangerous offenders to be released into the community. COMMISSIONER KING: And then just as a final thing, I guess, again, we're doing those things. Last summer when we had issues with child support people, we went to the Court. Judge Fitzgerald helped us to stem a moratorium on that to help us last summer. This summer we didn't do that, but this is like an object lesson in the dynamics of, for example, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee.

Is that one of the points? 23 COMMISSIONER KING: I'm not 24 sure if that's one of the 24 points, but we are working on expanding work release, 113 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 and that's something that the prisons has been advocating, because we think it's kind of silly for you to be locked up in prison -- I think we had 150 people like that, for failure to pay child support. Because if you were working before you got to jail, you don't have a job anymore. You're not paying the child support. And I agree with the City Controller, that we should be able to do better with that. But a lot of the issue, for example, with non-violent offenders -- let's say you're non-violent, you have a drug and alcohol problem, which most of them do, or you have a mental health problem, Prison's position would be, there's a lot of those people that don't need to be in the Philadelphia prisons, they need intense supervision and treatment on the outside. One of the issues the City has been facing, though, is finding a place to put them. Nobody wants a drug treatment facility in their 114 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 neighborhood. Nobody wants an intensive mental health treatment center in their neighborhood. So when we go out -- I know the Department of Behavioral Health and other departments are looking into this -- there's a shortage of that type of housing in the City, and that may be a way that City Council can assist us, because if we don't have these sorts of people -- they're not the sorts of people you can just release and have no 14 supervision. Mental health people, for example, need intense supervision, and part of the problem is finding housing in a neighborhood somewhere where these people can be treated. So, again, I would just say that the Controller has some very good ideas and the City is working on all of them.

Let me just -- don't go. Let me just go back to a couple of things earlier where you 115 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 talked about the sites where you place inmates. If your computer system is not up to speed, how are you able to identify what the prisoners are in there for? For instance, if you put prisoners, inmates, in a dormitory setting, do you send the prisoners who are less violent to those sites or who may be the persons who have not paid their child support or a lesser offense, or somebody who may have been locked up for murder or something like that? And how do you know where to place them if you don't have an up-to-date computer system? COMMISSIONER KING: Well, the computer system is up to date enough that it has certain -- (Applause.) COMMISSIONER KING: It has certain basic information that we're able to do. We have a classification system and we have CMR, our record center in CFCF, that when an inmate comes in, you 116 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 take down their information and you put them in appropriate housing based on that classification information. Mr. Butkovitz is talking about the computer system, you know, if you ask it random question Y, you can't necessarily get in to get that aggregate data out. We would have to sit down -- and when he came up, I forget what the question was, but the average length of stay or -- one of the Mayor's issue is, he believes there are a lot of people there who are just there because they're poor and they can't pay their bail. So how many people are there on bail of $500 or less. I can't just press a button and do that. I have to go to our MOIS Department. They have to write a program to extract that information. That's why we've made the investment in our new Axiom System, and we have a whole list of requirements of questions people have asked, things I want to know so that come December, January, we're better able to 117 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 pull that information out so we can determine, for example, with the 24-point plan -- and we have Judge Fitzgerald and his accelerated court procedure. Come January, I want to be able to tell, is that working, how many inmates have been released early, earlier than they would have been otherwise based on that new procedure that he's put in place. And that's what we're working toward. And we're also working toward having this system in place before we replace Lock and Track so we don't have to have Dr. Goldkamp come back every ten years and tell us what the problems are. We will be tracking those things. And when the bail commissioners are diverting from the bail guidelines, as his report has indicated, we'll know that and we can bring that to people's attention and say, You have to do something about this.

So when is all of this going to be up to working? COMMISSIONER KING: We had beta 118 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 testing I know earlier, in the late summer. The last meeting I had with them in December, we're going to have something up and running where I can ask these types of questions. I mean, we bought the software. It's called Cogno software. We have software. We have a technical team that's working on this. And we've been working on it for over year, I would say.

Is beta something new? I think beta refers back to the old computer system. COMMISSIONER KING: No. It's IT lingo. It says we've developed something, here's the beta version; i.e., it's not functional yet, but here's what we've come up with and how it would work. And they gave us a few examples. We've had that demonstration, and now they're moving it to the next level, so in December or so we can have some actual data, so when you ask me whatever question, I'll be able to answer. 119 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711

Let me just ask you a question that none of us have asked, but we've asked each other. Have you seen the 24-point plan and where is it and when will we see it? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes. I've seen Dr. Goldkamp's drafts. I've seen the 24-point plan. I couldn't recite all the points. I could talk about some, 11 but the City Solicitor is the one that, I 12 guess I would say, has care, custody and 13 control of the 24-point plan, as well as 14 the other members of the CJCC. I mean, 15 the judges have a copy, the Public 16 Defender's Office, the DA. Everybody who 17 is on that committee has a part of -- 18

You're not 19 part of the committee? 20 COMMISSIONER KING: I think 21 what the -- that would be a question -- 22 I'd love to have you on the committee, 23 but you'd have to talk to the City 24 Solicitor about that.

No, no, 120 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 no. Are you on the committee? COMMISSIONER KING: Yes, I'm on the committee.

But they haven't given you a copy? COMMISSIONER KING: No, I have a copy of the 24-point plan. I just think that there are a lot of people there and they don't want the plan used in the wrong way, so they're waiting until the report is finalized. And I don't know exactly what the Solicitor's plans are for that.

Any other questions?

I asked this before, but you have to forgive me. I do not remember the answer. City Comptroller, you have had conversations with the leadership as you prepare your report, correct?

Leadership of -- yes. Yes.

The 121 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 leadership of the Philadelphia Prison System. Forgive me. So we know clearly there's a major divide if the leadership of the Philadelphia Prison System would give itself the grade of an A and your analysis and evaluation moves it to a C. So therein lies an opportunity to close the gap, at least with some of those items cited in the findings of the report that you have coming forward, as well as this anticipated 24-point plan, period. Thank you for your testimony.

Councilwoman Blackwell.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me commend the Chair for holding these important hearings and thank you also to my colleagues, Councilwoman Reynolds Brown and Juan Ramos, who are concerned about this very important issue. Just last week, we had hearings on a Call to Action, which is 122 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 what we view as the next step in reducing violence in our City, and we thank the Controller and the Prison Commissioner for their testimony then. And I was very interested to learn -- and maybe it's been said already. I'm sorry. I've been in meetings all morning -- that we spend $88 a day for prisoners, and it's just amazing that more than any place in the world -- I mean, we used to tie with like South Africa. Now we have more inmates than anybody. And we learned about a case where a young man owed $134 in support and was locked up. And we'd rather see him wear an ankle bracelet and get out there and be forced to work for those support payments. So obviously it's up to us as a City and a society to do better about who is locked up, who isn't and how we handle that whole issue of overcrowding. Certainly we know it's not safe by all the standards, and having to open 123 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 old prisons doesn't work and having people sleep in common space, in kitchen space isn't safe. So it's just not good, and we are hopeful -- I am hopeful that out of our hearings, Call to Action, out of your hearings, Madam Chairwoman, on this whole issue of overcrowding that something good will allow us to put all of this information together and have a comprehensive approach. I mean, as you know, we also had a skit from Sharon Baptist Church and Reverend Dr. Keith Reed who talked about an approach to violence. So we've tried to approach it, I believe, from every area we can. And when we have scholars such as we have here and experts in this field who can provide all the data we need and who have the firsthand experience, we're hopeful that with our working together, that certainly we can be part of the solution to say what can happen. We did come up with job 124 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 training. We did come up with classes. We did come up with programs for ex-offenders pre and post incarceration, and we have those to certainly submit to your Committee for your record, as well as that for our own for a Call to Action. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your comments. It was a very productive hearing last week. I was not here, but I did watch it for the most part, and what it takes is a very inclusive approach to trying to deal with the problems that we have in the City, particularly around the whole issue of criminal justice. So we thank Councilwoman Blackwell for her action. We thank you, Mr. Controller, for your action. And, Commissioner, we appreciate you. You just stay right here. COMMISSIONER KING: Okay.

Okay. 125 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 COMMISSIONER KING: You want me stay in this spot or can I go back --

You can sit in your chair. We'll call you as need be. We know we have two people from the prison side, but if they will allow me to bring up some of the -- if that's okay with you. I'd like to bring up Ms. Tanya Jones from the Detention Center, if she's here; Gilbert Hamilton from the House of Corrections; Latoya Lockett; Rochelle Reddy; Jennifer Zayas; and Jennifer Leake and Mr. Lorenzo North. We're going to take about three minutes just before you begin. We have to let the stenographer have a moment, and then we'll come back. (Short recess.)

We're ready. Thank you so much. Have you decided who is going first? 126 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Could we have your attention, please. We're going to be resuming the hearing. Mr. North, would you identify yourself for the record, please, and proceed with your testimony.

My name Lorenzo North. I'm the President of Local 159.

Speak into the microphone. Make sure his mike is on, please.

My name Lorenzo North. I'm the President of Local 159, District Council 33. I'd like to thank the Committee on Human Services for holding these hearings on the problems at the Philadelphia Prison System. This morning you will hear from shop stewards representing six institutions that's represented over 1,800 correction officers. Sixty percent of these officers are female in the City 127 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 of Philadelphia. They will testify and present evidence demonstrating that Commissioner Leon King's lack of safety measures for correction officers, support staff and inmates is based on the word "money." In fact, Commissioner King made a statement at one of his meetings that security is not the main priority of the prison anymore, it's the budget. In addition, you will hear testimony providing clear details of violent assaults, rapes, attempted rapes and, sadly, death of inmates. Assaults on correction officers went up 50 percent. Assaults on other inmates have tripled. And the Philadelphia Prison System has failed to maintain security needed to protect both inmates and staff from harm. Furthermore, you will learn how the Philadelphia Prison System holds more than 8,800 inmates, far more than they were designed to contain. As a result, the Prison administration has placed 128 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 inmates in cells designed to hold two and house large number of inmates in unsafe areas designed for recreation and social services. You will hear constant threats from inmates to riot and murder officers. You will learn how correctional officers have been a scapegoat for prison officials, who have given harsh suspensions and numerous terminations for minor infractions and conditions or events out of their control. You will learn how the Philadelphia Prison System's top officials transfer of veteran officers could have sent an inmate to his death at PICC, why over 150 officers decided to leave the Philadelphia Prison System since 2006. That's the end of my testimony, but I hear the testimony of Commissioner King today. It's mild practice. It's a shame. The City of Philadelphia is in a crisis -- I mean, the Philadelphia Prison System is in a crisis. And he had -- 129 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 during the summer of 2006, if we didn't threaten legal action against him, my officers will still be working in unsafe conditions, which they still are. We had inmates locked down for almost two years, not being out, because he decided to replace the mandatory posts, "mandatory" indicating that these posts must be filled at all times. As of this day, they go unmanned. That's a security problem. You cannot run the prisons without the right staff. That's where inmates get stabbed. That's where inmates get raped, inmates die. But Commissioner King don't seem to understand that. The union is working with the Administration to provide solutions, but you have to provide security to keep the inmates and the officers and support staff safe from harm, and he not doing that. Thank you.

Thank you 130 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 very much. We'll just have all the testimony and then we'll come back with questions. Okay? Miss, madam.

Councilpeople, my name is Tanya M. Jones and I'm the shop steward at the Detention Center. I, along with several other shop stewards that represent the correctional officers of the Philadelphia Prison System, wish to bring to your attention the breaches in security and wrong doings in the Prison System. I'd also like to bring to your attention that there is an abundance of favoritism going on and possible repercussions to officers that testify about these situations today. On May 31st going into June 1st on the 11:00 to 7:00 shift, no yard patrol was ran due to lack of officers. On the same day, annex officers were made to leave their post unattended to assist with the count of the dorms, leaving 131 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 their posts unmanned. That's a breach of security. No detail officers to run courts, leaving housing officers to wake courts up by themselves. That's a breach of security. That's 4 o'clock in the morning, leaving one officer with a minimum of 224 inmates to wake them up, get them ready for court and run them out. On June the 10th of 2006 at DC -- DC became an intake jail due to the overcrowdings over at CFCF. When the DC officer called out sick, no officer was replaced, leaving only two CFCF officers there, which is a breach of security. You have inmates running in and out going to court, sheriff officers coming in to take inmates out. So we're short of staff again. June 21st of 2006, posts were being cut to save money. Officers are at risk. No block medication officers, which means the housing officer has to 132 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 leave their area, leaving one officer on that area to run medication. Breach of security. June 22nd, there was a fight on Echo Dorm between inmates. No supervisor to respond due to shortage. Our supervisors consist of a shift commander, a kitchen sergeant, a sergeant assigned to PHSW and a center control sergeant. There needs to be a supervisor on the floor at all times in case anything happens to supervise the officers and the inmates. At no time should a shift commander be on the floor to assist with anything just in case there is a riot that breaks out. The shift commander's job is to get in contact with the deputy wardens, the wardens, the deputy commissioner and the commissioners. If they're on the floor doing other supervisors' job, who is to get in contact with these people? On August 13th, Gulf Dorm had 133 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. m. m. with a full complement of inmates. On your paper it says a census of 224, but that was wrong. It was a census of 227. At that time, DC's dorms went up to 230. They only had three officers on the unit. After a certain amount of time, me talking to the shift commander, they decided to move them down to the gym, because the officers weren't able to see these inmates. You can't see inmates do tours in the dark. On August the 20th, only three supervisors on duty: Center control officer, shift commander and a roving floor lieutenant. And on that day, several officers were ordered to run yard exercises to keep the inmates happy. Breach of security. On October 18th, I myself went to Warden Delaney with the written agreement between Administration and Local 159 about the ratio for the older jails, which means Detention Center and 134 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 House of Correction. They are mass movement jails. We are to run them 58 inmates to one officer. They are being ran 64 to one. Warden Delaney told me he would contact me at a later date to let me know what they were going to do, but we were ordered to open up anyway. Breach of security. m. No 12 shakedowns conducted until the next morning, which gives inmates time to move these weapons around in the jail. There could possibly be a weapon in an officer's back, neck or anything. Two days ago, assistance was needed on Echo Dorm to control the inmates due to a fight on the housing area.

Only two officers were on that area due to an officer being pulled down to the Chow Hall to run the meal. The census was 187. There are several other things that I wrote down that you don't have in 135 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 front of you, but I wanted to bring to your attention. I Dorm was turned into a housing area that now holds 80 inmates. This is right behind the kitchen, where they have access to all the things that they work with in kitchen, the knives and things like that. That's a breach of security. The morale in the jails is not low. It's non-existent. )

We are constantly put down on an everyday basis. And from our understanding, it's an order now that the supervisors give kudos to the officers to make us feel better now. If it's not genuine, then why are you doing it? It shouldn't be an order. We are law-abiding citizens. We're in there to do our job. We're doing our job. I don't want to have my kids get a phone call saying, Your mother 136 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 was killed in jail because somebody is worried about money. It's a security issue all the time. That's what we're there for, to keep these inmates locked up, to keep them safe, of course, but to keep ourselves safe, too. Security equipment, we don't have radios that work. We do not have radios that work. I'm sure up on the third floor their radios work, but we don't have batteries that work. We have gates that are falling apart that we constantly call maintenance to fix, but it's not in the budget. We don't have the stab-proof vest that we're supposed to have. In the Detention Center, we only have two. Now, how many officers is there? I believe it's over 300. So you mean we get to take time when you wear that today and you won't get stabbed, but the other officers do get stabbed. We don't have adequate equipment. The PA systems don't work. So when they call for something such as a 137 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 response, you don't hear it. That means an officer needs assistance. I won't know if an officer needs assistance until I see a bunch of CO's running down the hallway. (Applause.)

We shut down the jails -- excuse me. We don't shut down the jails, but administration shuts down the jails so they could pull officers to go on marches that have nothing to do with the jail system. (Applause.)

They were speaking on mental health issues earlier, which is Special Management Unit over at DC. Officers are being pulled from Special Management Unit to go run chow. We have inmates over there that take psych meds that have the strength of three to four men. Now, not only is it one officer working a post, you have officers that are females working a post. One officer that you have to open up the 138 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 doors to give them their medication and/or food. This is not acceptable. This is not acceptable. We're going in there every day, and I understand they have an issue with people calling out sick, but do they think we're under stress? Did anybody ever take time to come in and find out do the officers need anything as far as talking to somebody, as far as making sure the equipment is there? We're out here buying bikes for a bike patrol we really don't need. Those officers need to be inside the jail. (Applause.)

One more thing. I put in a memo to my warden stating that we needed a copy of all of the stabbings that went on in DC in July and August. They returned a letter stating that I had to see their lawyer, because they felt as though we were trying to press charges against them. But that's something that should be given 139 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 at any given time to a shop steward. We have paperwork stating that if we ask for any information, it should be given. Things are being kept away from us. They're doing things the way they want to do them. There's a lot of favoritism inside these jails. If you're my friend, if you're doing what I want you to do, then you can get this post and things like that. Me myself, I'm not worried about them at the bottom of the tier. I'm on a dorm with 224 inmates. Been there for seven years. I have no 15 problem with it. Please help us. (Applause.)

Thank you very much. Who is going to be next?

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

I'd like thank you for having us. 140 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 Can you ever be safe in jail?

What is your name, please.

My name is Gilbert Hamilton from the House of Correction. I'm the stop steward. Can you ever be safe in jail? My answer to that is, probably not. Can it be manageable? Yes, with the proper supervision, right administration. A couple years back, you had Operation Safe Streets. Whatever happened to Operation Safe Prisons? You -- not you, but the City government has flooded the prisons with these same people that they wanted off the street, dropped them in our lap. What are we to do with them? Stack them on top of each other? I have a problem -- and I'm a little nervous, but I have a problem with the fact that we go unrecognized. The public does not know what we face every day. If they did, I'm pretty sure they'd 141 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 be bringing us food baskets, Band-aids, something cold to drink on them hot days. (Applause.)

Until this past summer under Mr. North, we started to get a little bit of exposure through the media. I'd like to thank him for that. But it shouldn't have took that. (Applause.)

It should not have taken for one man to stand up and go to the media and say, We got problems, because these problems have been in existence for a long time. I guess I'm a little bit more fortunate at the House of Correction. Some of the issues that I have to deal with usually are corrected, but I'm a man of commonsense, and if I can see it, why can't you? Also, we have posts that are also being pulled to leave a protective custody inmate unaccompanied, unsupervised, under directions of a 142 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 supervisor. It is wrong. An officer got charged with that, and he's currently under a five-day suspension whenever he receives notice. We have a juvenile population -- and this is one of the reasons why I'm going to be real angry when I talk about this. We have a juvenile population of over 115, 120. We have 75 of them as of this morning that are in triple cells. You're talking high-custody-level inmates sitting on top of each other. We just had two days ago possibly a rape that we don't know whether it actually came true. We are overcrowded. We need our own facility. Since 1998 when I started working with the juveniles, we've been promised a facility, a location, and it's all been talk. I don't know who is bringing us the talk, but when we talk about overcrowding and understaffing, I have post orders on my unit right now that says that I'm supposed to have four 143 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 people on that unit from the hours of 7:00 to 3:00 and three people on that unit from the hours of 3:00 to 11:00. We have three during 7:00 to 3:00 and three at night. We have no one designated to man the rear, which is where we put all the punitive and administrative -- all the, quote/unquote, bad boys. We have mixed-in population back there. There's no place for us to go. Overcrowding deals with the adults, but the juveniles I believe that are high custody and high strung, thank God, we haven't had any major incidents on that unit, but that matter needs to be beefed up. In closing, I would just like to say, when the public can really see what we do, I know we could be appreciated, because right now as a group, I think we feel very unappreciated. Thank you 144 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 (Applause.)

Thank you very much.

Good morning. My name is Jennifer Zayas. I'm a correctional officer at RCF. I'm also the secretary for Local 159. First, I would like to thank you for allowing us the opportunity to bring our issues forward to you so that it's no longer a dark society in the Prison Systems where nobody knows what's going on. Thank you for the opportunity to be able to expose these issues. I would like to start with the mission of the Prison System. When Commissioner King came on to the Prison System, he came with a mission, and the mission statement goes as follows: It is the mission of the Prison System to provide a secure environment that adequately detains persons accused of or convicted of illegal acts, to maintain a safe environment and to provide programs 145 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 for those that are accused of an illegal act. That's not what's going on in the Prison System. It is not a secure environment. The conditions in the Prison System are so bad right now, we have had multiple stabbings. Let me start by saying that I was once a supervisor for PICC, which is the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Facility. At this facility, there is a stabbing a week, more so like two a day. It's getting to that. I was a supervisor over there, and under my supervision, we had a nurse, who because we didn't have rovers on the floor, she was assaulted sexually by a sexual predator who was being held for trial for committing sexual acts against women. She was in her office when he walked in. Because there were no rovers, meaning an officer standing outside in that area -- there's supposed to be two officers assigned. What they were doing 146 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 at the institution is putting the officers on units to eliminate overtime. Because they didn't want to pay overtime, they were working the jail short and having all of the units open. So what happened was, the inmate went into her office and began to fondle her. If it wasn't because there was a response call to A Unit in which the overhead called -- and I was the supervisor on duty running to that area -- the inmate comes running out of her office, and that's the only reason why it stopped. If on that particular day there was no response call, this inmate would have probably raped the nurse. This is the kind of situations that are going on inside of the Prison System today as a result of the management working us short. Me being a supervisor over there, my personal story is that I moved to the 11:00 to 7:00 shift. I was 147 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 ordered to take a post to eliminate overtime. When I addressed the concerns that I was the only supervisor on the floor and that I was concerned about the safety of the officers and of the inmates, I was ordered to go home and suspended. Not only was I suspended, I was demoted from being a supervisor, and the cause was because I was jeopardizing the safety and the security of the institution, when in fact I was concerned about the safety and security of the institution. And when I tried to address the issue, I was, therefore, punished and made an example of, because at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Facility, supervisors on the 11:00 to 7:00 are being placed on post as we speak today to eliminate overtime. These situations are going on in the Prison Systems. I can go on to tell you about inmates that were stabbed, inmates that inserted pencils into their abdomen for attention because of the lack 148 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 of security. At PICC, we have one officer to two housing areas on the 11:00 to 7:00 shift, meaning that they have to wake up courts on both units. Each unit has a census of 100. So that means that they have to wake up, let's say, on one 9 unit, leave them unattended, go to the 10 other unit and wake up the other 25.

11 There's no rovers on the floor, meaning 12 no officers on the outside of that where 13 if something happens, that officer has to 14 fend for themselves. And they give us a 15 can of pepper spray and call it help. 16 Okay? This is what's going on in the 17 Prison System today. 18 I can go on and on with 19 stories. Right now I'm assigned as a 20 correctional officer due to my demotion 21 at RCF, where we had two officers 22 assaulted on the unit. There were no 23 rovers assigned to that area at this 24 particular time, so there was never a 25 response team called. If it wasn't for 149 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 another inmate who intervened and helped the officers, them officers could have been hurt severely. So these are the situations going on. At PICC, the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Facility, when I was a supervisor over there, the inmates were able to kick their doors open whenever they became irate. The doors do not close properly. They're so old that the Prison System -- in order for them to replace them, it will cost the budget hundreds of dollars, so in turn, they know that this is happening, but they continue to allow it to happen. The inmates become irate over there, they kick their doors open and they assault the officers or go after another inmate in which they're looking to hurt because of a personal vendetta that had took place earlier in the day. That's my closing statement, but I just want to thank you for the opportunity to allow us to address these 150 10/31/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 060711 issues, and we're praying that we do get some help in the Prison System. )

Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. My name is Rochelle Reddy. I'm a union delegate assigned to RCF.

Go ahead, ma'am.

Our concerns at RCF is that inmates are being housed in unsecured areas. They're being housed in --

What's RCF?

Riverside Correctional Facility.

Where is that?

Is that for the women?