Thank you. Member Brooks, your light is on. Okay. No question? Okay. As there are no more questions from members of the committee, I want to thank you all for your testimony and for indulging us today. Thank you very much. Continue to keep up the good work.
Thank you. Ms. Loughead, can you please call the next panel?
Michael Resnick, Commissioner for Philadelphia Department of Prisons.
Good afternoon, everyone. COUNCILMEMBERS: Good afternoon.
I want to take a moment, first and foremost to thank all of you for your service to Philadelphia Prisons. I've had the opportunity to work with Mike Resnick over a significant period of time serving in his body, but to you and your whole staff, Michael, just thank you for all the things that you do and your team do on State Road. I just wanted to personally say that personally. I also recognize that although we are public servants, and we do this work, we know the work that all of you do is significant only for the simple fact that it is not guaranteed that you come back home from your call of duty. It is never guaranteed. On any given day, anything can actually happen and you may not return back to your family. So I just want to start off by just saying thank you for your service and thank you for your dedication. And with that being said, just state your name for the record and please begin your testimony. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Certainly. And thank you for that acknowledgement, Council President. I'm Michael Resnick. I am the commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. And if you'll indulge me for a moment, Council President, I would like to go off script for a minute to discuss some matters that I think are important that this Council hear about, and that the public hears about. As you are aware, we are under court oversight in the Remick federal litigation, and we get monitored by a team of monitors, and they file reports twice a year. And we've just received the eighth monitoring report. And I want to share some of the highlights from that report as they demonstrate PDPs positive improvement during the mayor's tenure. These are all direct quotes from the monitors from the report. Based on compliance findings, PDP achieved more progress in this reporting period than it has in any previous reporting period since monitoring commenced. PDP has now achieved substantial compliance with seven of substantive provisions, 9 and with 21 of 37 sub provisions. 10 For the first time, PDP has achieved 11 at least partial compliance for 12 every sub provision. In 2025, PDP 13 increased security staffing by more 14 than 60 percent, from 241 new 15 officers in 2024 to 395 in 2025. 16 PDP'S employee retention 17 rates have continued to improve in 18 this reporting period. Of the 395 new personnel hired in 2025, 362 remain employed as of December 30th, 2025. This represents an exceptional 92 percent first-year retention rate and an improvement from the 74 percent first-year retention rate for the period January to December 2024. PDP has also achieved substantial compliance with Substantive Provision No. 5, healthcare. PDPs General Medical and Specialty Care appointment backlog has been reduced from 1,587 backlog appointments in 2022 to 245 backlog appointments as of December 31st, 2025. And as we're sitting here in April 2026, I'm happy to say we have no medical backlog. Given that many jails across the country continue to experience both unprecedented staffing crisis and delayed medical and mental health healthcare, defendant's progress in these areas is commendable. PDP has continued to exceed data production requirements pursuant to the sanctions order as part of the population reduction initiatives that reduce PDPs average daily population from 4,545 in the second half of 2024 to 3,526 in the second half of 2025. And the week of Easter, a couple weeks ago, we had a 3,281-population rate. PDP is now providing timely and adequate medical and mental health care pursuant to the agreement and is making notable progress with requirements for outer cell time and other substantive provisions. PDP has now distributed more than 3,000 tablets to eligible class members. During site visits in February, 2026, class members offered positive feedback about applications and materials.
Class members confirmed that they're receiving benefits of increased contact with loved ones through tablet calling, increase access to legal research, books and other reading material, and access to self-guided educational, therapeutic, and spiritual applications. PDP procured and issued tablets quickly and efficiently for a large jail system, and should be commended for a successful initiative. Monitoring of this sub provision is therefore discontinued. Over the past year, PDP has initiated dramatic reform at -- of RTS operations. PDP is developing an entirely new program model that increases opportunities for educational and rehabilitative program, vocational training, and reentry services. PDPs reentry efforts are impressive achievements in a short timeframe. RTS has demonstrated exceptional skill, galvanizing support for reentry services and the participation of other city departments and numerous community partners. In this reporting period, PDP has shown improvement across virtually every substantive provision of the agreement. This improvement reflects commitment and sustained effort by PDP leadership and staff. And I just want to say that none of this progress could have been made without the budget this Council approved, the tremendous -- tremendous support that we get from the mayor and her administration, the managing director's office, the Law Department, my colleagues across city government, my executive staff sitting here with me, and most importantly, the unsung men and women who work at the Philadelphia Department of Corrections and make this progress possible. So the mission of the Philadelphia Department of Prisons is to provide a secure correctional environment to detain people accused, or convicted of illegal acts, and prepare them for reentry into society in a clean, lawful, humane and safe environment. PDP offers a wide variety of programming, including but not limited to job training, educational services, parenting classes, substance abuse services, medical services, behavioral health -- behavioral health therapy, individual counseling, and group therapy. PDP helps advance the mayor's goal of building mutual trust and safety in the city neighborhoods by ensuring that returning citizens have access to resources to support their successful reentry to their communities. The Philadelphia Department of Prisons operates five facilities: The Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, the Detention Center, and the Prison Health Services wing, the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center, MOD 3, where we house certified juveniles, and the Riverside Correctional Facility. Our plans for 2027: The PDP will continue to increase our staffing and retention to improve the security of our facilities, as well as work with our partners in the Office of Safe Neighborhoods to coordinate violence reduction programs behind the walls. We will continue to provide increased out-of-cell time to enable the population to receive more services and programming, and PDP delivers -- delivery of such services and programming includes medical and mental health care, substance use disorder treatment, educational and literacy programs for all inmates, but especially vulnerable and underserved individuals during incarceration in preparation for their release.
Our plan for 2027 and beyond remains broad based and consider most areas throughout the Philadelphia Department of Prisons and support our primary goal, which include continue recruitment and hiring and our promotional efforts, continue partnership with our criminal justice partners to achieve the goal of lowering the jail population, continue technological use of the medical monitoring devices, specifically within the first five days of admission, which allows medical staff and security to be alerted when newly admitted individuals who are medically vulnerable and who are going through severe withdrawal start to experience warning signs of medical emergencies, as is an aside, we had an issue last night at the Curran- Fromhold Facility on intake housing, an inmate's medical monitor went off. Staff and medical responded, that individual was treated for a rapid heart and -- rapid heart rate and was sent out to hospital. Continue to provide medication for opioid use disorder, and all substance use disorder. Continue to expand services of PDP Reentry Center, which opened in September 2025 and already demonstrates strong impact by serving central -- by serving as a centralized hub for individuals returning to Philadelphia from incarceration on State Road. The Reentry Center offers a range of coordinated services, including reentry planning, workforce development, job readiness, housing navigation, access to identification and public benefits, food and basic need support, behavioral health and substance use referrals and more. And to continue improving programs and services offered to the incarcerated population by the RTS division, which manages discharge planning, education counseling, vocational skills, and reentry services. That concludes my testimony and my commercial. And I'm available for questioning.
Thank you very much. I just want to have a question around reentry. Only 30 percent of sentence individuals are commonly participating in educational or vocational programs with a 60 percent assignment target for medium close custody inmates. What are the specific barriers preventing higher enrollment? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Particular the barriers for -- or preventing higher-custody level individuals from engaging in the vocational services is a simple matter of security, councilmen. So if we have to move individuals to outside areas, we're trying to develop the skill center, which is a facility up on our campus. And in order to move people out of their facility and take them to their skill center, there needs to be adequate levels of security, not only for them to be transported there while they're there and return to their home facility. But under the leadership of Deputy Commissioner Jaco with Assistant Deputy Commissioner Archer and Assistant Deputy Commissioner Dr. Baker, we're -- as I said it earlier, we're taking a holistic look at how we provide services, and we are looking at reorganizing the way we provide those services to include more individuals in our population.
What new strategies, tactics, security protocols, have been implemented since some time ago? I know some individuals escaped from State Road and was out on the run for a significant period of time. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. Number one, councilman, we just have more people. So we have more staff than any time in the past. So there are no units that are not manned by a correctional officer. Through the day and during the night. We don't have a situation where one officer is covering two or three housing areas. So we have staff assigned to every single housing area. The facility -- go ahead. The facility where that incident occurred, we renovated the exterior and we put no climb fencing on all of those yards to make it, I won't say impossible, but virtually impossible for anybody to scale that fence again. We have drones that are tethered to our facilities that have a bird's eye view all around our campus. They do have alerts if there's a heat signature that goes within a no-go zone, we're alerted to that. We will be developing with our partners at OIT, a command center where all of our cameras will be integrated into one location. We have developed a security and intelligence unit, which is staffed by experienced security captains. They try to connect individuals in the facilities who are aligned or are warring factions, because what happens out on the street just translates into the facilities on state road, so they're trying to interdict contraband, they're trying to reduce the violence. As I mentioned earlier, we work with our partners in the Office of Public Safety, Safe Neighborhoods, to bring those credible messengers that do the outreach on the streets to come behind the walls and work with our population to reduce the violence inside. We've also expanded our canine force. We've utilized Tech 84 body scanners to prevent the introduction of any dangerous substances or contraband. So there's a -- there's a -- oh, and we also are integrating an RFID system. So every inmate has an armband with an RFID chip in it. And all the officers use props. All the officers use a Spartan device. So nobody goes anywhere or moves anywhere without the officer tapping the RFID band, and then sending that inmate somewhere. And when they get to where they're going, they're received. So we have a constant count and we constantly know where everybody is.
Okay. And last, have you changed the release time, where there was an incident where a young man was like -- was released in the middle of the night. And within 15, minutes on 17 the site was murdered, right? And 18 so he left in the middle of the 19 nighttime, whoever he had beef with 20 decided to show up. And probably was told that he was coming home. And it kind of -- you kind of segue into this question based upon your saying whatever goes on the streets also goes on behind State Road, which I'm very familiar with. What's the new protocol since that time? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So legally, councilman, when someone's bail is paid, and they are no -- we are no longer capable of holding them and detaining them, we are obligated to release them from our custody.
Okay. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: We do do releases throughout the night, except for the females. And we contracted with a bus service. So we have a bus that sits on our campus and people who are discharged after -- what is the time? 9:00 o'clock, they can go over to the driveway by the house of correction and get on the bus and be taken to specific designated drop off points.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nicholas O'Rourke, then Councilman Dr. Nina Ahmad. Member Brooks, your light was on. Is it still on?
Okay. All right. Councilmember Nicholas O'Rourke.
Thank you, Mr. President. And good afternoon. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: You passed last time, Council.
Indeed, indeed, indeed, indeed, indeed. I'm going to go ahead and give you a few, though. But I want to begin first by commending you. So much work has been done, and I think folks have been, you know, willing to say it, but I think we ought to pause sometimes and really sit in our wins. You have done an incredible -- a yeoman's job at -- at reducing the prison population. And I think, and if there were more people in this room, I'd ask everybody to give you a round of applause for that work. And I want to thank you for that work to make that happen. And you've kept it down, which is something also to be commended. Historic lows that we are seeing. And in my decarceral mind and all of that, it's really is a bright day to see this happen. It's a testament to you and your team's work for what you've been able to do here before. So thank you. To that end, though, what is the current population versus designed capacity, and how has the reduction in the population actually impacted conditions? I know that we've talked a bit about it, but if you could just speak to it on the record specifically like outdoor time and other programming that's related to outdoor time. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. So we are at 33 -- if I'm reading this right, 3,323 today. We have 3,147 in population on State Road. The additional are individuals who are out of our custody, but still under our jurisdiction. So 3,147 individuals are on State Road today. With respect to design capacity, I don't want to get into what I think the design capacity is, but I think we all can remember a time back when we had close to 10,000 people. So maybe the jails weren't designed to hold 10,000 people, but they held 10,000 people, almost. So we are under our rated capacity, is what I would say. We have certain housing areas that are not populated, we have certain areas over at the detention center that we're just not using any longer. So I think the fact that we have 3,147 in population, and we have 400-ish new correctional staff, more than we had last year, I think it's obvious, and these were the things that I told the mayor when I -- when she and I met to discuss this position that we need to lower the population, and we need to increase our staffing numbers. And we've been able to accomplish those two things. So I think the fact that we have less people and population and more staff, just shows that more inmates or the population is out, they are out more for the better part of the day. They get to go to their programs; they get to go to their visits. They -- now that they have tablets, they're able to do video visitations with their family members. They're able to access entertainment and education materials on those tablets. They're able to go to the rec yards. We don't let them to go outside, but there are rec yards. At the detention center, there's outdoor rec because it's just a lower custody level.
Got you. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: And those inmates go to the gym, what is it, two hours, and then outdoor rec if weather permits for two hours.
Okay. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So we are very, very close to what I would call back-to-normal operations.
Very, very close to what we would call back-to-normal operations. That's really good news. And again, I just want to commend you for the work that you've done on that. God, albeit that bell came quick. Okay. Let me get at least one more in and hopefully I can get another round. As far as I understand, the medical bracelet initiative has been reported as being successful for helping staff respond to health crises in real time. What's been your assessment of the initiative and what plans do you have after this particular pilot? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So this is the ForeSight Medical Monitor. And every inmate that comes in to receiving in CFCF or females over PICC, they're explained what this is and what the purpose is. It's put on, it's secured. They wear it for five to six days. And if there is a change in vital signs that this monitor detects, it will alert on the unit and unit control, and in the medical area. And the only person who can turn off the alert is a nurse. So somebody's job is to respond to the alerts. And we do intake about 40-ish people every single day. You know, so it's quite a number of individuals who are on active monitoring throughout our system. If the band loses contact, it will go off. If an individual is exercising and their heart rate goes up, it'll go off. But this has the capability of learning what an individual's base vital signs are. So exercise will be learned, right? If an individual is in distress, an alert will go off, people will respond: security staff and medical staff. If there is an emergency, they will be attended to. Like the emergency that happened last night, an inmate's band went off, it alerted, he was having irregular heart rate, staff responded. He was, I believe, from the flash report, he was sent out to the hospital to be evaluated. So we've had several incidences where people were treated at the medical unit in the jail and returned to their housing unit. We've had several incidences, like last night's where the individual had to go to the hospital. We've had several incidents where people were admitted to the hospital in ICU. So one person's life saved, I think is worth the initiative and the process.
Perhaps the -- it sounds like there's data being collected with this. And I -- the -- I mean, probably, maybe not data that everyone's interested in, but could be. And I'm curious then about who actually manages that. Like who has access to the data that is in those? And I guess, there's a more structural question around what is the general like data privacy management between PDP and the vendor? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So the data -- the data collected from these devices is medical. So it goes into our medical record, our electronic medical record for the inmates. Our medical provider can pull de-identified information in terms of the number of alerts that went off, the type of alert that went off, and what was the outcome of those alerts.
Okay. All right. The bell rang twice. I'm taxing it. So I'll let you have that back, Mr. President. Thank you for your time, sir.
Thank you very much, sir. Councilmember Kendra Brooks and Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you so much. I -- before I get into my questions, they're mainly about -- the first group of questions are about ICE. I just want to thank you guys again for experience that we had down at the Orchid and the farm with last spring. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Yeah, last spring.
It was one of my best experiences visiting the prison system and just knowing that we have that, and I still have the pictures of you guys running around with the chickens. So I'm going to forever remember that. I saw you guys in uniform today; that's a long way from chasing chickens. But thank you for those experiences that you're able to offer the inmates up at the prison system. And the next experience I had that was similar to that when I went to go visit the women at Muncy, and some of the programs they had there. So it's really good to see when programs are coming together and working for the people. So my questions around ICE. So in 2017, the Philadelphia Department of the Prisons implemented a new protocol providing that ICE will be given access to interview an inmate in one of the detention facilities if the inmate consents in writing to that interview. And to implement this, the Department of Prisons created a consent form to be given to any inmate that ICE wants to interview. So I'm going to have a series of questions. So it is: How many inmates have signed this consent form since 2025? What types of explanations are inmates given about this consent form? Is it the policy for each inmate to have meaningful access to a lawyer before signing to explain the potential consequences of signing a form? And what languages is this form in an explanation provided in? And in general, in what situation does the prison employee notify ICE or federal authorities about an individual that has interacted -- that they have interacted with, and when they do not? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I will answer your last question first, Councilman. We do not interact with ICE. We do not notify ICE of anybody who is in our custody that they may be interested in. What we do is comply with the law as announced by the Third Circuit. If ICE issues a detainer and a valid judicial warrant signed by a judge, we will detain that individual. If we just get an ICE detainer with no judicial warrant, we will not hold that individual beyond their release date.
So the information they shared about a consent form is all not true? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Well, there is a consent form, but I, you know, 2020? July 2020 was the last time this occurred where someone was asked to consent to speak to ICE. So we haven't done that in six years.
Thank you. Thank you. And my next question is about how many people currently incarcerated require accommodations for disabilities and what is the breakdown for intellectual disabilities and for physical disabilities? And what sort of accommodations are most typically -- do you most typically see? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So unfortunately, our director of medical operations is not -- was not able to be here with us today. I know that we do follow and are obliged to follow the Americans with Disability Act. I can get you specifics. I just don't have it available to me.
Okay. We'll send these over in writing. I kind of wish we did to you. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Okay.
Because I knew I would have to rush through. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Very good.
And the other -- the last group around family visits, how many in-person visits occur weekly, and are there barriers that are -- that you are aware of that adversely impact visiting, like transportation scheduling or staffing? How many spots are there each day for people to have in-person visits? How does this compare to pre-COVID levels, and are you planning on expanding in-person visits back to anywhere near pre-COVID protocols? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So as you're aware, Councilman, our facilities are not the easiest to access from most parts of the city. That's one of the reasons why we expanded the tablet program, because individuals can visit with family members via the tablet. They can have that interaction, they can communicate, they can see each other. The hope is the more individuals will stay in contact with their family members through the tablet without having people trek all the way up to the -- to the facilities. I mean, I see women coming up to the facility carrying small children with them, and I can imagine the burden that that is to get yourself up to CFCF or one of our facilities and try to visit. So I think -- and it's my hope that more individuals will take advantage of the tablets. But I think, I don't know if Deputy Commissioner Beaufort can talk about the numbers we have available in the visiting room.
So Xavier Beaufort, First Deputy Commissioner. Roughly during the week, it's over 175 visits across all facilities. Only on the weekend, our seven youthful offenders, they're the only ones that get -- that gets visits on the weekend, because they're in school during the week. So what we did, we came up -- when COVID hit, we came up with an appointment, once we started allowing visits again. So now, everyone has to go on our system and make an appointment.
That allowed us to get out of the first come first serve basis and to strategically seek people in the visit. So each visiting room holds. CFCF holds the most, but each of the visiting rooms at one time hold a little over 30 people per.
Okay. So are you -- do you think that the visitation numbers will increase similar to what it was pre-COVID, or people are just taking advantage more of the virtual opportunities that you are offering now?
We have a lot less inmates than we had pre-COVID, so I don't think we'll see pre-COVID numbers just because the numbers of inmates aren't there. And again, like I said, we're not a very easy place to get to from most parts of the city, so I think more people would opt for a virtual visit than to come all the way up to the facilities.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Dr. Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. Good afternoon and -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Good afternoon.
-- congratulations to you Commissioner Resnick and your entire team. You know, the treatment of those incarcerated directly reflects a society's civilization, ethics and humanity, and we are getting there. So I'm really, really pleased. I had two specific questions. One, and also congratulations on your ongoing work with the Food Trust. I wanted to know, can you give us an update as to how that work is happening in that partnership? Nutrition is critical for all of us, including those who are incarcerated. So if you could comment on that, and then I have one more question. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Certainly. So as you're probably aware, the Food Trust comes up and they provide education to the inmate population on good, healthy food choices and nutrition. They continue to do that work. Prior to my arrival, they had been engaged in a data-gathering undertaking that was ultimately going to result in a -- in a presentation in a report. I found out about it sort of roundabout. I wasn't aware that they were doing that work specifically. And when I got a chance to see the report, I was a little concerned because the report was reflective of data they were collecting in 2023 and before. So it did not match our current operations. And I am -- I'm aware that our department is not perfect. We still have some work to do. We have made great progress and great strides. And one of the first things I had requested from our contract manager, Ms. Snyder, who's here, when our food contract went out for RFP, I wanted to make sure that we were able to provide an upgraded level of offerings, an upgraded menu. Because we do hear complaints from the population, we hear complaints from Council, we hear complaints from the advocates. A lot of what we're able to offer, we are limited because of our food production plant. We have a cooking chill plant. It's in CFCF, that plant makes all the meals for the entire system. It's distributed to the individual jails, and thawed, and then served. So what that plant can manufacture and produce, that's what we're confined to. But working with our vendor, we were able to make improvements, enhancements to the meal. We worked with a consultant. I had them bring in a consultant to take a look at what we were offering. The nutritional quality of it. We worked with the health department to make sure we're providing healthy, nutritious meals. We raised the calorie content. We put on the menu, the breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu, additional offerings. We've also provided snacks and smoothies to the population. So we have made great strides in the -- look, nobody comes to the prison for the food, right?
No. 19 COMMISSIONER RESNICK: But a lot of bad things can happen in our environment as a result of the food.
That's right. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So the food needs to be nutritious, it needs to be filling, it needs to be palatable, it needs to look good. So we've made great strides in making those changes.
Yeah, and I know they're updating their report based on your feedback. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Right. We had a meeting last week with the Food Trust, and they're going to update their report. We're going to be able to take a look at it and work with them to ensure that the data is fair and -- not to censor anything.
No. 19 COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Right. To be fair and transparent, but just to make sure it's an accurate reflection of what's going on.
Yes. I think the issue was a lot of times things are said are on the menu, but anecdotally, that is not what people say that they're actually getting. So I know you're resolving that, so thank you. My next question is about data on sexual assault in the prison. Are you keeping that? Has it gone up, gone down? What are the resources, and how are you managing that space? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Yeah, we have PREA, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, we have PREA coordinators in every single jail, we have a protocol that we follow when a reported sexual assault comes through the PREA hotline or is reported to staff. Our medical provider is also involved. We involve the Philadelphia Police Department Special Victims units. As I sit here, I don't know the numbers for you, but we can make sure you get those.
Thank you. I would appreciate if we got the numbers sent to the chair of our committee. I appreciate that. Thank you very much, Council President. And thank you again to you and all those who work. This is a difficult space to work in, and you clearly have made a lot of strides and we are here to support you to make more. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Appreciate it. Thank you, Councilman.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from members of the committee? Mr. O'Rourke, you want to take us home?
Thank you, Dr. Ahmad. She actually asked one of the questions, so it was even a shorter response. Kind of following up on leader Brooks's questions around visitation. It's my understanding that inmates have five names that they get on the list for any of the visits in person, virtual, what have you, why? Like, why is it capped at five? Especially since you have less population since, which is great news, of course. Any plans to like extend that? If you -- if there isn't like a rural rhyme or reason at this point anymore? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So thanks for the question, Councilman. That issue came up when we implemented the tablets. So there was not an unlimited amount of visits that we could provide under the tablets because that information has to be entered into the database. We have to do -- we are doing background checks, because those individuals can also come up and visit in person. Those five are not set in stone, inmates can change the people on their list 90 days? Every 90 days you can update, change, add, delete. So it was just a management issue without it becoming unwieldy.
It's a tech issue. It's not like a decision that you were saying, you can only have these five. Is there any way to make it easier as opposed to having to wait 90 days before you swap them out? Like I guess, it probably isn't that my -- it doesn't sound to me like it's a big issue, but would there be any way to kind of work around that so folks don't have to feel like I have to update every three months who can come see me and who can't? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I don't know. I think we're constrained by the technology of the tablet vendor.
Okay. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: And that was why those numbers were set.
The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffrey J. Young for a point of information.
Thank you. So they're only allowed to change every 90 days. And up at -- in our jails, most folks aren't there long, right? Because they're waiting for sentencing. I mean, they are waiting for court. So like, to have -- to limit them to 90 days doesn't really allow, I think, the -- their supporters to really come up there to see them, to take -- you know, make sure that they're okay. If it's only every 90 days they get to change names out. So if I'm not there that long, then if I may be missing some folks who want to come and support me while I'm in the most, you know, difficult position that I'm -- that I'm in, that I probably will ever be in. So I just want to make that note for the record, Mr. President. Thank you.
Yeah. I actually thank the member for making that point. I recognize that you're constrained by the technology. I want to encourage you, especially picking back off of what Member Young just pointed out, if we can find a workaround around that, I think that would be a reasonable thing to do, a righteous thing. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. And just to address the Councilman, unfortunately our length of stay is 244 days on average. So about 47 percent of the population is released within the first days 11 or less. Those that remain stay on 12 average, 244 days, rather long for a 13 county jail. But again, that is a 14 function of court processing and not a result of any operational decisions that we make in the -- in the prison system.
In conclusion, could you break down the full options of support and programming that you have available to incarcerate individuals who are anticipating release? Just curious about what is there for those who are getting ready to get out? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. So as you're aware, we are a county jail; we are not a prison. So the vast majority of our population are pretrial detainees. We don't know when they'll be released. They could come in and be gone within the first days, or 10 they could stay on average 244 days. 11 We don't know. So planning for 12 someone's discharge and release is a 13 little difficult when they're 14 pretrial. Our sentence population is about 8, 9 percent of our population. Much, much more easier to plan for discharge. And under the leadership of Deputy Commissioner Jaco, we are working to develop an assessment tool to determine what an inmate's particular needs are, then providing those services based upon the assessment while they're with us. And then, as I said, we started our reentry center in September of 2025. Ideally, when an inmate is released, all inmates that are released go to the reentry center when it's open, because that's where they get the money back if it's on their inmate account, and that's where we have all of the service providers and our partners. But what would happen once we have our assessment plans and our tools, they would sit with a worker who would go over their assessment plan, their accomplishments inside the facility and make linkages and connections to community service providers to follow up on that treatment plan. So that is ultimately the goal that we are striving to get to. We're just not there yet. We're in the process of developing that assessment tool and working with our consultant.
Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, top brass, we appreciate you-all for being here today. Mr. President, ready to go home, sir.
Thank you very much. Any other questions, comments from members of the committee? Hearing none. Well, I want to thank you very much for your testimony. Continue to keep up the good work. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you.
The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jamie Gauthier for a motion at the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolutions before the committee today stand in recess until Wednesday, April 15th, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. In Room 400, City Hall.
It has been moved and properly seconded that the public hearing and meeting on the bills and resolution 7 before the committee today stand in recess until Wednesday, April 15th, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. COUNCILMEMBERS: Aye.
Anyone opposed? The ayes have it, and this committee stands in recess until Wednesday, April 15th of 2026, 10:00 a.m. (Committee of the Whole hearing concluded at 4:00 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence are contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by me of the above case, and this copy is a correct transcript of the same. _______________ Samanda J. Rios