Joint Committees on Public Safety and Legislative Oversight, March 4, 2025

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA JOINT COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC SAFETY AND LEGISLATIVE OVERSIGHT Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, March 4, 2025 10:10 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR., CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY

240718 - - -

Good morning, everyone. I note that the time has arrived for a public hearing, a joint public hearing between the Committees of Public Safety and Legislative Oversight to review Resolution No. 240718, introduced by Member O'Rourke. Ms. Stack, would you please call the roll?

Councilmember Jones.

Present.

Councilmember Lozada.

Present.

Councilmember Landau. (No response.)

Councilmember Thomas. (No response.)

Councilmember Gauthier.

Present.

Councilmember Brooks. (No response.)

Councilmember Harrity.

Present.

Councilmember Young. (No response.)

Councilmember Squilla. (No response.)

Councilmember Phillips.

Present.

And, Councilmember O'Rourke.

Present.

I will note for the record that we've established a quorum for -- could you, Ms. Stack, read the title of Resolution 240718.

Resolution 9 No. 240718, authorizing the Joint Committees on Public Safety and Legislative Oversight to hold hearings examining actions necessary to significantly reduce the Philadelphia Prison population in an effort to permanently close Philadelphia's oldest and most inhumane prison facility, the Detention Center.

Thank you, Ms. Stack. Before I turn it over to the author of this resolution, I just want to start by thanking everyone who's here to testify. I want to say as Chair of Public Safety, this is an ongoing issue which transcends, Committee members, and that we are going to stand ten toes down to make sure that everything we can do will be done to make sure that a couple of things, one, that we can reduce the population where appropriate and always improve the conditions of those human beings that we take custody of, because that's a big statement for you to deny someone's freedom, you are responsible for their well-being. And with that, I want to turn it over to Member O'Rourke.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Make sure your mic --

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, everyone. Thank you to all the guests that are joining us this morning, all the panelists that have taken the time out today to testify as well as to Chairman Jones and Chairman Thomas in his absence, Chairs of the Committee that are meeting here today. It's good to be here to really dig into some issues that for too many, so, so many, only seem to surface with a hot headline attached to it, a juicy little headline that get folks' attention. We read about riots and escape will be big news for a week, you know, some sort of breakout will capture everybody's attention or maybe you hear about the $25 million that our City was forced to set aside by a federal judge. That's exactly what happened last August before the current PDP administration was here. Since we violated the 2002 settlement in Remick v. Philadelphia, a class-action lawsuit that only asks to clear the low bar of constitutional treatment for people in prison. The City was found in contempt of court for being out of compliance with the provisions laid out by the settlement. And to be clear, we're not close to meeting that bar right now unfortunately. When the contempt order was handed down based on a monitor's report from last March, the City was in substantial compliance with only 30% of the provisions laid out in the agreement, and that's rounding up. Last October we were still at 30%. These provisions again are the constitutional floor, the floor now, daily out-of-cell time, basic and timely health care and behavioral health, access to the law library and other basics that should happen in our prisons. And if you've read them, you know the federal monitor for our jails is not holding back in these reports. I want to read just one portion of the last report from October into the record, if you don't mind. "By its own inaction, the City has failed to honor its dedicated workforce and prolong the neglect of many incarcerated persons. " So today we're here to talk and take responsibility, to stop pointing fingers, to address something that we've known for decades. All is not well up on State Road, and that's despite what have been some real successes, if I can say. Some in this room 6 remember how we saw the incarcerated population plummet when Philly joined the MacArthur challenge. Some remember celebrating the closure of the House of Corrections. Folks remember that #CLOSEthecreek campaign, and there is much in those efforts to celebrate. Yet and still we find ourselves here talking about a rolling crisis that continues to affect so many families and communities in Philadelphia. There are bright spots in the conversation. Like the work the Defender's, District Attorney's Office and the First Judicial District did last year to fast- track the release of 100 pre-trial detainees. That's the kind of coordination -- I want to emphasize that particular word today -- the kind of coordination that we need in order to address the crux of the problem, which is the ratio between staff and the incarcerated on State Road. Commissioner Resnick can attest to the fact that recruitment and retention is getting better at PDP, but that's only one side of the equation, just one of the scales that we need to balance and we need to find that balance to ensure that we don't violate the rights of thousands of Philadelphians, that is, assuming that we do care in today's age. I know that politics is shifting that we care about not violating each other's rights, let alone each other as persons. Because a lot of those folks come home, y'all, and we have to be honest about the fact that too many return with more fear, more trauma, more shame, even if their stay is only a couple of days. And frankly, there are too many going in for 5 or 6 or 13 days for it to always be a wise use of our resources. I think there's agreement there. When folks return to their communities with a broken spirit, we know we have failed. We should know that.

Thankfully that isn't always the case, and a number of justice-impacted Philadelphians return home with a drive to improve their community, with demands on their lips as we would want them to have, asking for the basics like accessible and affordable housing, health care for their families, good jobs and strong pipelines to good work once they get those jobs, and for institutions that can be held to account for the harm they inflict, especially in a time when institutions don't want to be held to account for the harm that they inflict. I'm grateful to be joining Chairman Jones and Chairman Thomas, who in his absence I should say, in building an institution that we seek -- or excuse me, that will seek transparency and accountability when it comes to our jails. But we need all of the decision-makers in this criminal legal system to step into the frame, to get into the picture. So I'll be honest, I do wish that the First Judicial District could participate in testimony, especially with some of the good work that they are doing. As legislators, we know advances are being made but we need to be a part of it and each branch needs to be better at bringing the public into our process. If you have a family member who's in a burning building, and we know that some of our city have experienced that, unfortunately so I don't mean to be light-hearted in this, but in seriousness if you have a family that's in a burning building and you don't rest assured knowing that the Fire Department is strategizing thinking somewhere about how they're going to fix it, you want to see them address the problem in realtime, inperson. That's a reasonable human expectation because these are real issues. There are whole families shaped and scarred by cycles of incarceration, whole neighborhoods that have been forever changed. It is no secret that they tend to be the most violent ones as a result. And at the end of the day, it's those with the least that are getting locked up the most. I don't want to make anyone out to be blameless, but the way incarceration actually works in America looks like a war against those without means, if we're talking about who is actually targeted on the outside and who was forgotten about once they're on the inside. So the change that we need moves beyond just the jail. The change we need must sweep through City Hall and through our courts, be felt in our neighborhoods, on the concrete, touch the ground and raise expectations for all of the actors in the criminal legal system. If we stay on the same course, we'll pay deeply for it and not just in dollars. The cost will live on in Philadelphians now enduring the demoralizing violence of incarceration, the families' mourned loved ones who have died on the inside and we speak their names, and the communities facing cycles of confinement that are anything but rehabilitating. Let's pay the $25 million of course, but we have to understand there are greater debts that we owe and greater heights we wish to reach in our governance. Pope Francis, God bless him, I think he's doing a little better today. He shook up the church last year when he confessed to an interviewer that he hopes hell is empty. That was his hope. Contrary to church doctrine, at least in the Western world, he admitted that he wants the salvation of each and every man, woman and child to be secured. I cannot help but to echo that hope, that damnation is nobody's destiny. That having been said thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time. I look forward to this hearing.

Thank you. Thank you, Member. And I appreciate you bringing this to the Committee's attention and bringing this before the public. And we will get to the bottom of where we are. It's reminiscent about -- you gave me a flashback. A couple of years ago before the pandemic we started a Criminal Justice Reform Committee, which I was a Co-chair, along with Keir Bradford-Grey And now Police Commissioner Bethel. And when they tried to kind of put their arms around what the system was, we received a process chart. And when I tell you it was seven pages long with possible outcomes, possible releases, possible penalties. And putting your arm around it is a very difficult thing, but what you said grabs me that we should be thinking about how we can improve that process to shrink it, to make it more efficient, and that's the spirit of what we are doing today. With that, Ms. Stack, who's the first panel of witnesses to testify.

District Attorney Larry Krasner and Commissioner Michael Resnick from the Philadelphia Department of Prisons.

Thank you. We have an ambitious agenda today, Committee members. We have a hard stop at 1 o'clock because of the next panel and Committee to use these chambers. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

Welcome. Good morning. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Good morning.

I guess we will start with the District Attorney. You've been here before. Please state your name for the record and begin your testimony. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'll try to state my name in less than 10 minutes, I promise. My name is Larry Krasner. I'm the elected District Attorney for the City of Philadelphia. I'm going to run a clock because sometimes I talk too much. We're going to try not to talk too much. And I appreciate the opportunity to be up here with Commissioner Resnick because there has been a lot of collaborative work on the challenges that we face. I want to start out by saying that first and foremost when we try to diagnose a problem, when we try to fix a problem, that's not a blame game. That is simply trying to work with your partners in ways that are effective. So to the extent there's conversations about things that might change, we all got to leave our egos at the door. I know I'm leaving mine. And we have to talk about things that might be able to change because this is a difficult problem. It is not something that is brand new or recent. This is a problem that has been developing over many, many years. And I think while we're making a lot of great progress and I'm very happy about the collaboration that we have, among others, with Commissioner Resnick and with the Department of Prisons, with the Sheriff's Office, with the Police Department, with the judiciary, while there's a lot of good stuff happening there, there's a lot more to do. So let me be clear. If I talk about solutions that involve all of us, that's not a criticism. That is simply an effort to work collaboratively so that we can get somewhere with some of these problems. I heard Councilmember O'Rourke talk about the reality of poverty and its interaction with criminal justice. S. Supreme Court, won almost all those times. It was Bryan Stevenson who said, you're better off -- and this is a paraphrase, you're better off being rich and guilty than broke and innocent in the prison system. And he's not wrong. There is no good reason why bail status or freedom status should be attached to money. It's a really bad idea. It's been a really bad idea for a long time. , for 35 years that is now used in New Jersey, Illinois, Kentucky, a system that is eventually going to take over, even though we've tried to simulate that, it's a matter of state law to get cash out of it. And in case anybody doesn't know what no cash bail means, it means some people get held. That's what it means. , it has meant about 12% get held until their trial because they are deemed to be such a danger to the community or so likely to flee or often both, that they're held. This is not everybody goes home and the other 88% have a much more robust system of support on the outside to make sure they don't trip up on the outside. That's where we need to be. But this is where we're stuck. We're stuck with a cash bail system. It is a bail system in which the DA does not set the bail. The bails are set by members of the judiciary, like everything else that all of us do, sometimes very wisely, sometimes not so much. And so, there are many different steps in this process where we can do things to try to make sure that the people who need to be in jail are in jail, but that as many people as possible who are safely out of jail can get out of jail. Very briefly I'm going to talk a little bit about the crime statistics because I think it's relevant. It was not that long ago we had 11,000 people in County custody. You may remember there were a bunch of rootin'- tootin' law and order people, meaning people claiming that they were pursuing law and order, but all of that incarceration was not actually consistent with the law and it was not giving us order. At that time, we had a lot more crime. What's going on right now in the city of Philadelphia is that we are safer than we were back in 2018. We are freer than we were back in 2018.

And we are a lot safer and a lot freer than we were when there were 11,000 people in County custody under one of my predecessors. Okay. That's reality. Safety and freedom are in no way inconsistent as long as it's done carefully, as long as it's done wisely. And so, I commend any process that is directed at getting us to be safer and freer all at the same time because we've shown it can happen. We led the country among big cities in improvements in public safety last year despite being the poorest of the 10 largest cities, despite there being more guns on the street every day than there were the day before. So there's nothing at all inconsistent about safety going along with freedom. I said 11,000 people in County custody back in the day. This morning I believe the Commissioner, who is my source of information for this, will tell you there's about 3700 people in County custody. There's about 3700 people. And our crime numbers right now are way below where they were last year, which was an exceptional historic record year both locally and nationally, right. They're way below that. So, no, it's not what they sold you. It's not a situation where the more people you lock up, the safer you get. On the contrary, the more people who don't need to be there whom you lock up, the less resources you have for public schools, for sports programs, for everything else that is so preventative and so proactive. What we should be after is preventing the next victimization, not just punishing the last. Both have their place. But what we should be after is a system where we keep getting safer and we keep getting freer. And to me, that is very doable. Dealing with the issues in County custody is a crucial part of that. So let me talk about one of the things that has been going on for a few years. It is our early bail review program. That is a good program. That in my opinion had a lot of benefit in terms of reducing the prison population, County prison, without causing any increase in crime that we can see, and hopefully that we will never see. This is a program where every day there's a courtroom and there are about to cases that are considered more or less a week after the first bail is set. They are considered by a judge of the Municipal Court, and the Public Defender's Office and the DA's Office go in there and make recommendations. Sometimes the DA's Office is saying, yeah, drop the bail. Sometimes they're saying, don't drop this bail, we need to go higher. There are parameters on this. It must be bails that are 250,000 or less. And there is also a list of cases that will never make it to that hearing and rightly so. They include cases, for example, where you have a child victim where the case is an FOJ. That means it's someone who's being held locally because they have a warrant from a different jurisdiction, to where a defendant has a state parole detainer. Why do an EBR hearing if they're going to be held in state custody anyway? Where the defendant is accused of killing or shooting someone, those cases don't even show up for EBR. Where the defendant has what they call an active Nebbia, That means there is a belief that the defendant is funded by illegal money so we shouldn't have people paying their bail with illegal money or where the defender is accused of violating a protection from abuse order and that, of course, is because of the special and especially dangerous dynamic of domestic violence. This is a careful program that began actually in 2016 but it was much, much smaller, much tighter guardrails. It has broadened over the years. And what we have seen is that it has an impact. But let me tell you this, part of the reason we need it is because the initial bail process can be improved. We came up with a second bail hearing essentially to fix the problems with the initial bail hearing.

There are things we can do with the initial bail hearing that are actually really important as well, and I am happy to work with any or all of you. I'm happy to do it in private. I'm happy to do it in public hearings to talk about what things we might do because there are more improvements. Second point that I want to raise in my capacity as someone whose job it is to try to protect everyone, and everyone -- of course includes correctional officers, it includes inmates and includes vendors and other personnel, sheriffs who go to and from the prisons. We have enjoyed good progress with the Commissioner and with the Police Department in trying to deal with the reality that there was a lot of criminal activity going on in the prisons, some of it by inmates, some of it by correctional officers, no 10 aspersions on the other ones who have a tough job and do it the right way. But that criminal activity has been fed by other forms of -- other challenges in the prisons. It has been fed by staffing issues. It has been fed prior to this Administration by efforts to remedy the staffing issues. It has been fed by a lack of up-to-date cameras. It has been fed by a lack of up-to-date technology. I won't get real specific because we're not trying to teach people how to get out of prison, but it has been fed by these other things. This city is a city that cannot experience what happened at Attica. We cannot do it. If we got cell doors that open, they need to be fixed. If we have camera systems that are down, they need to be fixed. If we have alarm systems that are problematic, that needs to be fixed. I have heard the idea of body-worn cameras on correctional officers. I think that's good for everybody, good for everybody, especially when they are supplemented with cameras that are stationary and permanent so you get the full picture of what's going on. I won't get into the various prosecutions because I see I'm at the end of my 10 minutes, but I'm happy here to address any questions you may have because I think this is a very, very important project for the city and can make a tremendous difference in making us safer and freer all at the same time.

Thank you, District Attorney. I want to acknowledge the presence of my Co-chair Isaiah Thomas --

No, that's Council President.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking right in his face. Council President, I gave you a demotion. I'm giving you a promotion -- Council President Kenyatta Johnson, would you like to say anything, sir?

, as well as the Legislative Oversight Chairperson Mr. Isaiah Thomas who's the Chair. And just wanted to -- just a couple things, one or two to follow up on, Mr. Krasner. It's always good to see you. I always like to state for the record that crime has been significantly higher, potentially homicides and shootings under District Attorney Lynn Abrams as well as District Attorney Ron Castille, who were two tough law-enforcement-tough-on-crime DA's, and crime was still higher than it is now. I just want to state that for the record so we can frame this conversation. Crime is down significantly in the city of Philadelphia and also across the state of Pennsylvania. And a reason why, from the work that we have been doing comprehensively to take a look at how we address gun violence and shootings here in the city of Philadelphia. On a state level, part of the Governor's proposal is to actually shut down two particular precedents based upon us not sending people Upstate anymore, and that's based upon the work that we have been doing consistently over and over and over. When you talk about the issue of bail reform, a lot of people say, well, we deal with this issue of gun violence, and I know Council Chairman Jones, we worked on this early on. But give us an overview when it comes to particularly gun violence your office approach, when you have individuals in custody and you request a certain amount of bail, I think 999,999, just short of $1 million bail to make sure the worst of the worst isn't let back out on the street, what usually happens in that case? And tell me about your team's approach. And this is just to set the record straight because a lot of people think that we lock them folks up and we just let them get out, but don't really know that you're actually moving forward saying I want this person to stay. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you, Council, President. I appreciate that framing and I appreciate your participation as always. So our approach is pretty straightforward, which is that there are categories of crimes and there are individuals who engage in them who need to be locked up. It is a lot fewer than it used to be, but there's some people who need to be locked up because at this time they pose a danger to other human beings and it's incompatible with safety on the streets to have them out and about. As I said though, when you go from 11,000 people to fewer than 4,000 people, which is where we are now, it's a lot fewer than used to be locked up in the old days. If anything, our frustration as an office is that when we're trying to go real low when we're recommending no bail at all for some nonviolent offense with someone who's suffering from mental illness, when we're doing that, a lot of times the judges will put a small bail on that case, so we're effectively locking up somebody for being broke. And then at the other end when we go in looking for a million bucks, and the reason it's slightly off of a million bucks has to do with how the prisons at that time were housing people. It was a public safety measure to be under 1 million because it limited the prisons options on how and where they house people during COVID, right. But that's how we got to that number. We wanted to have a zero number, and then we wanted to have a number that was so high that it was very unrealistic that people who pose a clear danger could get out. We have very often been frustrated that we're going in for a million bucks and what we get is a quarter of a million bucks. While that may sound like a lot of money, it only takes $8,000 to get out on a quarter of million bucks. First of all, the rules, for frankly no good reason, say every single bail has to be 10%. They didn't used to say that. 33%, right. So when we're actually asking for $1 million, even though it will hold an awful lot of people who pose a danger in custody, what they would need to get out is about $33,333. That's about what it is.

And even then we have cases where there's been a horrific shooting at a playground and we have bail commissioners who give a quarter million dollars, which is $2,000. That's what you're looking at. I think I got my math right there. That is unacceptable. We have to be able to do something so that the highs are high and the lows are zero, because that is what actually works.

And just for the record, I just want to clarify that's not your decision? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: It is not my decision.

I want to clarify that for the record. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: It's not. It is not, Council President. And it is the consequence of just long- established practices. We have bail commissioners who are not elected -- and some of them are great, don't get me wrong -- but we have bail commissioners who are not elected and some of them are not lawyers. They have not been judges who supervise people on probation and parole, who did trials with individuals. Their skill set is more administrative and bureaucratic than it is judicial and it poses problems. It does not have to be that way. It is not that way in any other county in Pennsylvania. And I'm not saying scrap it all and I am not here to diss those individuals who are bail commissioners. But we do have to look at the fruit of the tree. And the fruit of the tree is that some things that should be nothing are, in my opinion, too high. So it broke people in jail, which clogs up the jails. And at the other end, some people who are really dangerous have lower bails than they should despite the fact that we're going in for higher bail. I mean, if you point a gun at somebody and you shoot it, that's pretty serious for everybody, often including the one who fired the gun. So to me that's a little bit bothersome. We have this rush to set bail and then we have people setting bail who don't even have the powers of elected judges to do things like impose enforceable stay away orders. There are some changes that can be made at that first level. I truly appreciate the leadership of the Municipal Court at this time. Joffie Pittman and also Karen Simmons, two excellent judges who are very thoughtful trying to do the right thing, I'm all in to work with them, to work with defense attorneys on a system of bail that would be more accurate from jump instead of having to come back a week later and try to fix things that could have been fixed in the first place. I think with a little bit of both of these methods we may be able to drive the prison population down further. And consistent with what we've seen for years, drive it down further without causing any endangerment of the public.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President. We will allow -- are you done with your testimony? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: I'm done and only available for questions.

Will you stick around please -- DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Of course.

So after Commissioner Resnick does his testimony, we can then begin the questioning. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Thank you, Chairman Jones. Good morning, Chairman Jones and Council President Johnson and members of the Public Safety and Legislative Oversight Committees. I'm Michael Resnick, the Commissioner of Philadelphia Department of Prisons, and I'm here to provide testimony on Resolution 240718, introduced by Councilmember O'Rourke, calling for hearings examining actions necessary to significantly reduce the prison population in an effort to close the Detention Center. The resolution states that the prison population was 4811 as of July of 2024. At the outset, let me convey the good news that our jail population through the collective work of our criminal justice partners has decreased to 3819 as of 2/27/25. And the population this morning, as testified to by the District Attorney, is 3854 total and 3692 inhouse population. I'd like to publicly thank our partners in the First Judicial District, especially the honorable Karen Simmons of Municipal Court, who has focused her attention on bail review as well as the honorable Rose Defino- Nastasi of the Court of Common Pleas, who has been focused on mental health diversion. The courts along with the Defender's Association and the District Attorney have been outstanding partners in implementing processes that have resulted in this reduction. Also, we meet monthly with the Criminal Justice Advisory Board and members of the Prison Population Subcommittee. While the jail population is seasonal, we must continue our efforts to ensure that as we move into the warmer months, the recent population reductions remain. We are working with the criminal justice partners to reduce the average length of stay, thereby lowering the population. As of July 2024, the time of this resolution, our average length of stay was 234 days. Currently it is an unacceptable 260 days. So, yes, the criminal justice system needs to look at case processing. But as I will discuss below, 60% of the inmates in population are being held on more serious charges. And one thing I will note for the record in alliance with what the District Attorney had testified to, at the end of the month when you take a look at the people who have been released from our population, 43% of them have been there for two weeks or less, which begs the question why are they there in the first place. And as a lawyer, I understand process. But if we're going to release individuals, 43% of those that are in custody, why should they be in the population in the first place. While the dramatic reduction population is incredibly positive news, it does not allow us to close the Detention Center at this time. The reason for this lies in the custody level of our population. 10 years ago the percentage of our population that was classified as closed custody, think the equivalent of maximum security, those with violent charges or major facility infractions, was only 30%. Currently that percentage is over 60%. The system is released releasing more nonviolent offenders. And as such, the majority of our population are those inmates with more serious or violent charges. The remaining 40% of the population are lower-custody level. Good correctional practice prohibits us from housing closed custody inmates with those who are minimum or medium or even community custody, which is why the Detention Center is still very much needed. Most of the housing units in our other facilities, Curran-Fromhold, Riverside and PICC, are used for closed custody inmates. By their design, construction and staffing, they are meant to house closed custody inmates. We simply do not have enough housing units in the other facilities to be able to house minimum and medium and community custody inmates completely separate from the closed custody inmates.

We currently have approximately 500 inmates housed in the Detention Center, and that's the only way we can house those of that lower custody level completely separate from the closed custody population. Additionally, the Detention Center houses a significant number of our older male population. These inmates, 55 and older, prefer to be housed together, not with younger inmates. These blocks have relatively no 16 disciplinary problems, are well- ordered, quiet and well-maintained. The Detention Center is also home to PHSW, our Prison Health Services Wing. PHSW houses inmates with more severe medical and behavioral health issues, providing ongoing care for those needs. PHSW is accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the facility is also licensed by the state of Pennsylvania as a medical treatment facility. So you've heard why we need to keep the Detention Center open. Please allow me to respond to the claim that the facility is inhumane. Yes, the Detention Center is old. It is our oldest facility currently operating, but it's not inhumane. We have dedicated staff there who work hard to ensure the conditions are as good as they can be for the population housed there. There's an assertion that the incarcerated population at DC are only receiving one hour of out-of-cell time. This is not accurate. The inmates housed on the dormitories can move about those sections at will. They have bathrooms, showers, phones, televisions, tablets to use in those sections. Further, the four dormitories at DC used to house as many as 232 inmates per dorm. Currently, we have less than 100 inmates housed on those dorms, allowing the dorms to be far less more crowded, more comfortable and the inmates are allotted an opportunity to use the rec yard for two hours a day weather-permitting, that's outside, and they're also scheduled the opportunity to use the rec gym four times a week, two hours a time. The inmates housed in our three nondormitory housing blocks, these are the over 55 inmates, around their cells for an average of 10 hours a day and they have bathrooms in their cells. But while they're in the day rooms, they have access to showers, phone, television, tablets, also able to play cards and other games. They're also allotted the opportunity to use the rec yard two days a week weather-permitting, and they're also scheduled an opportunity to use the rec gym five days a week. As for programming, the Detention Center houses individuals enrolled in the Options program. It is a therapeutic drug and alcohol treatment program that is court-ordered, and they participate in that program consistent with the court orders. The Detention Center also houses participants in our new Leash on Life program. They participate in the program designed to deter recidivism as they prepare rescue dogs for their forever homes. They're provided with internships, housing assistance, job placement assistance upon release, and we currently have the 37th cohort of that program ongoing at the Detention Center. Other programs available are Better Minds, Fatherhood Enrichment program, Anger Management, Mindfulness and Meditation, Career Keepers and several other educational programs. Regarding our medical backlog of offsite appointments, we have worked aggressively to reduce and decrease the medical backlog throughout the entire PDP. The current Detention Center backlog for offsite medical appointments has dropped from 104 in July 2024 to just 11 now. 4 million. The current budget includes 360 full-time clinical and support staff. 5, meaning we are delivering more hours of care than we are budgeted for. Onsite primary and chronic care backlogs are 87% less than the highest during the COVID period and overall are below the federal monitor's return-to-normal targets. Onsite specialty backlogs are 78% below COVID high. And in most cases, are below the federal monitor's return to normal.

Off-campus specialty visit backlogs continue to decline and are now almost 50% or 47% below the COVID highs. PDP continues to augment and improve services. Tablets are now being used campus-wide for sick call requests, Brixadi, a 30-day injectable form of Suboxone, has been added to our medical-assisted treatment program so that inmates charged with diversion of their Suboxone get a second chance and can remain in treatment. PDP continues daily physical and weekly behavioral health care rounds on the segregated units as per National Commission on Correctional Health Care standards. Additional rounds are conducted as staff allow, and there is a contention that the Detention Center is infested with rodents and cockroaches. We have a contracted provider which comes weekly, provides weekly pest control and they also come on demand if an issue arises. Regarding issues of flooding, the only time the Detention Center or any of our facilities experience flooding is when an inmate places something in the toilet that should not be flushed and these incidences are rare and immediately rectified by our maintenance staff. 5 million in order to better address maintenance issues throughout our facilities. Understandably, great emphasis is placed on the lack of air-conditioning in the Detention Center. Our three nondormitory housing blocks are air-conditioned. PHSW is air-conditioned. Currently, the four dorms are not air-conditioned. However, working with Capital Projects and the Office of Sustainability, we have the installation of air-conditioning units in the dorms budgeted and in our plan for these units to be installed this spring. Regarding our staffing challenges, we have worked very hard to increase and maintain our staff and the results are positive. Since April of 2024, we have hired 230 correctional officers. Our attrition rate in that period of time has only been 56 officers for a net gain of 174 correctional officers. Our attrition has remained low since April of 2024, in the single digits, and we are running about 2% a month. So our staff vacancy rate has dropped from 47% in April to 34% currently. We currently have a class of 58 in the academy scheduled to graduate in April. We are steadily increasing towards our post plan of 1576. We have a recruiting coordinator who's conducting recruiting an outreach for us. We have also engaged the Whalls Group, a national recruiting firm specializing in corrections. In closing, I agree that collaboration will be needed to continue to reduce and maintain any reductions in population to help ensure that those who should not be incarcerated are not. And just as important, until there's a dramatic increase in the closed custody population we will not be able to close the Detention Center. And I will be happy to answer any questions members may have.

Before I turn it over to my colleagues, I want to try to get two questions in, one to each of you. First and foremost, I was around when we closed the House of Corrections and affectionately, or not affectionately, known as The Creek, and that was a measured response to the reduction in the census up there. I want to also say that we have walked your pods up there, me, Member Brooks, former Member Gym and realized the immense responsibility that your professional staff have to undergo, many of whom are female officers overseeing 40 to 80 men on a pod. And I just found it to be exceptional work that you're able to maintain any measure of control. So before I go there with you, Mr. District Attorney, did I understand you to say in simple plain English that the prison population is down and crime is down; two things can be true? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Two things are true, Councilmember.

So you have been a long proponent of looking at the cause as opposed to just the cure. And I know there are a lot of opponents to that kind of thinking, but the numbers don't lie. We are spending, you know, I want to give Council some credit. We put up a lot of money for reduction-of-violence programs that we fund, but we have to consider our teammates in this that are looking at this in a different capacity and under different light and say thank you because we are getting there, not fast enough for those who are victims of crime, not fast enough, but we are getting there with that methodology. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: We are getting there and we are getting there collectively. It was not that long ago that you, Councilmember, Council President were leading the 100 Shooting Investigation, which, you know, challenged a lot of us to be in the same room and exchange ideas and identify agreement, identify differences. It has been a collective effort that has gone on for quite some time, and obviously many, many of these factors are not easily within our control. But I will say this: I think a lot of the work that's being done at the prisons is great. I think it's important. I think it's positive. Okay. And the reality is we need to continue that. But there are things that the District Attorney's Office can do, that the Public Defender's Office can do, that the judiciary can do, and it wouldn't hurt if the $25 million being held by this judge, and it's a great judge by the way, Judge Jerry McHugh. He's about as decent and smart and good and hard-working as it gets, but a little bit of that money could be used by all the entities I just said, all three of us, DA, PD and the judiciary, to come up with some processes to make sure that we have fewer people actually on the bus to go into custody and we have more people coming out successfully so that they don't come back around. Wouldn't take a lot really, but it would make a big difference. And one thing that Council might be able to do, if you are so inclined, is you could join us in a letter in which we are proposing that some portion of the unexpended funds there, I know a lot of them have been expended for the prisons, and rightly so. But some of that can go to take to lift the burden on the prisons in other ways, before people would even get there or when people are stuck there too long and don't have to be. Some simple stuff can make a difference. I have with me Brett Zakeosian, who has evolved as a Special Investigations Unit attorney to become effectively a specialist in the prisons. And there's a fascinating interaction here between holding people accountable for criminal activity in the prisons and also controlling that prison population. It is the same good work that addresses both of these issues. So that's my little plug for the value of collaboration with the prisons but also with the entities that are responsible for people getting there and getting out.

Thank you for that. And we heard you with my good ear about that joint letter. I heard you. Commissioner Resnick, real quick -- and I'm going to I swear turn it over to you guys -- we some couple years ago experienced some violence in the parking lot of your facility. One of the things that I'm channeling my inner member Isaiah Thomas when I ask these questions, how are we on locks? How are we on cameras? How are we on controlling of that parking lot? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: And so, Councilman, thank you for the question. We have deployed our transportation unit to our facility grounds. They patrol 24/7 365 now. So if you come to the prisons, you will see prison transportation vehicles with lights activated stationed in certain areas and then they do roving patrols. We've just completed the installation of a network of perimeter cameras around the jails. We have actually drone cameras that we're installing on the facilities that will take a bird's eye view of our campus. We're working with OIT to develop an integrated camera system. So because of the age of our facilities, the different facilities have different cameras and they operate on different systems. We want to get one system that will integrate all of those, replace our older cameras and make sure they all work on one platform. We're also investigating the possibility of outfitting our staff with body-worn cameras. So we've also implemented a Security and Intelligence Unit working with the District Attorney's Office to monitor phone calls, monitor visits, gather intelligence on security threat groups, interdict contraband that's coming into the facilities, and that unit has been highly successful. We have identified certain individuals, staff, visitors and contractors to the District Attorney's Office for them to take the appropriate action. So I think --

Locks? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: All locks have been fixed.

Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to Member O'Rourke and then Member Harrity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just jump right into these questions again. Thank you both to the District Attorney as well as to the Commissioner for being here today and for sharing your testimonies. Commissioner Resnick, I want to briefly start by making sure that I understand a few points about why we can't close the Detention Center. First, 60% of PDP's population is in closed custody. Meaning, they have serious charges and we need to house them separately. Secondly, the Detention Center, among other important things, houses folks who are incarcerated over less serious charges. If those things are true, is it fair to say that if we continue to reduce admissions for the less serious charges, we'll have less of a need for the Detention Center's nonspecialized beds? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Well, to start off, Councilman, PHSW is at the Detention Center so that is a full medical and mental health hospital. There's about 50 or 60 inmates at any given time there. So if I were to close the facility, I'd have to find another healthcare facility to house those individuals. But essentially, your paraphrasing is correct. 60% of or a little over 60% of our population are what we classify as closed custody that you would think maximum security, so they need to be housed in our most secure facilities, the three that I mentioned, CFCF, PICC and RCF. While I still have about 500 medium, minimum and community custody inmates like, example, all of our outside workers, they're housed at the Detention Center. They're the inmates that can work around the facilities out on the grounds. They're housed there. As I think I said in my testimony, our population tends to be cyclical. We're at 3700 and change today or 3800 and change today. My fear is that if the processes we've put in place do not maintain and we do not address the further issues of length of stay and process, the population will do what it does every spring and summer and rise.

Heard. And so, just to put a pin on what you said, essentially the issue in terms of closing that particular spot is a facilities issue that you have an important component that is one place. If we moved it, we could potentially be able to close that down. I just want to make sure that I'm clear about that. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: If I moved it.

If that happened? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: If that happens.

Thank you very much, Commissioner. And again, I appreciate your willingness to be here and to collaborate and do look forward to the continued partnership. Let me just move on. Out-of-cell time is a basic necessity for health, safety and rehabilitation in jails. Without it, people are forced into near total isolation which worsens mental health, increases tension and violence and makes re-entry into the community even harder. That's why the Remick settlement required the City to provide at least five hours of daily out-of- cell time by 2022 or late 2022. However, the latest federal monitor report found that no housing unit at CFCF or PICC averaged at least six hours of out-of-cell time. 29% of CFCF housing units averaged less than an hour a day. The City remains noncompliant with this basic constitutional requirement. So the question is, the next federal monitor report is coming out at the end of the month. And I think I learned recently that even that's a little late or delayed or what have you. That having been said based on recent improvements, which we do acknowledge, will the data show that the City is finally meeting at least partial compliance with the out-of-cell requirement? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So, Councilman, the monitor's reports are based on data collected and visits that have occurred months previous. So this report that comes out now will give a snapshot of what the conditions were several months ago. Since the last monitoring visit, we've deployed more correctional staff and our population is down. So -- and I don't mean to get too much into the weeds with this, but let's say I close the Detention Center and I moved those 500 inmates throughout the facilities that exist that we have left. The population on those housing units would rise. Right now with the population lower on those units, I can open those units with one officer. I don't need two officers. So the number of officers that I have now allows me to open those units fully. In the past what we were doing was opening the bottom unit for a couple of hours a day, locking them in, opening the top unit for a couple hours a day, because I had too many inmates on a housing area with just one officer. Now that the population has been reduced, I can open up entire units with just one officer. These are labor agreements we have with the union based upon staffing. So with the population where it is, that allows us to open up -- Deputy Commissioner Nash, who is my new Deputy Commissioner for Operations, is working with the wardens to develop daily operational schedules that will allow us to open up those facilities at least six, seven, eight hours a day. So I think as our staffing continues to rise and if the population level holds, I'll be able to open up units for the better part of the day.

Okay. Mr. Krasner, thank you again for being here. I wanted to ask about the newly-launched emergency bill here. Before I do that, you mentioned something earlier in your testimony. Just for the record, what percentage of cases does the DAO request that 999,999 number amount for? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: That is a good question to which I don't have the answer at this time, but I can certainly let you know. I can tell you we don't have a quota or particular percent or a particular number, but it relates very directly to the nature of the charges, the history of the defendants, and also if they have a long record of never showing up for court, that is also considered, but primarily relates to those factors. So what you would see now, contrary to what I saw for 30 years as a criminal defense attorney when I used to go to the prisons, what you will see now is a different and much smaller population in custody than before. That's a good thing. They are different in that there's a higher portion of felonies because we got a lot of the people on dumb misdemeanors out. They are different because of the nature of prosecution of homicide cases, which can often take two, three years to conclude. People on homicide cases are in before trial with few exceptions. So it is a group charged with more serious offenses. It is a group charged with more felonies. That is certainly an indication that a process of trying to separate out the wheat from the chaff is functional. And I'm not saying it's perfect. Don't get me wrong. We have our agreements and our respectful disputes with the judiciary at times over particular cases. That's the nature of the work. That's just what we do. But I think that we can talk about early bail review, which is a positive thing and has been adjusted and expanded. We can talk about that, but I never want to lose sight of the reality that what government often does is they set up programs. And when those programs need to be changed, they come up with a new program. They don't go back and fix the first one. They come up with a new one. There are things that could be done today at the initial bail process -- maybe not today, but they could be done soon at the initial bail process that would shorten that list of early bail review because stuff would get handled right the first time. That could happen. I'm dedicated to working with the partners to see what we can do. I'd be thrilled to see that prison population come down further despite the fact that Commissioner Resnick correctly notes which is that there has always been, probably will always be, a correlation between criminal activity and when it's warm outside. That's just how it is. So as we head into the summer, there certainly will be a likelihood of more criminal activity and more arrests made, all of them coming in for bail hearings. But none of that is to say we cannot work toward having a county prison system that is extremely rehabilitative while people are waiting. It is such an opportunity to be as rehabilitative as possible in terms of job training, in terms of treatment of different types, in terms of trying to explore the underlying issues. And this is no shade on the system or the Commissioner. But when you have adequate staffing and when you have the technology you need and the place becomes secure and the criminal activity shuts down, you have options for much more educational programming. You have the ability to allow that. There are places in the country where it has occurred. There's no reason it cannot occur here. That of course is a longer term goal than an immediate one, which is to get things stabilized and get them steady. But this is where we should be heading because people who come out of that system don't come back around.

Yeah, sir. I think that the work being done by the honorable Judge Karen Simmons and the FJD, your office, the Defender's Association just reiterates that we can address overincarceration while the City continues to become safer. And you kind of already answered it a bit, but I'll just ask and be done so I can pass it to my colleagues. Given the impact of these hearings, is your office committed to continuing them beyond the initial phase? And are there any plans to expand or improve the process to ensure more people benefit from timely release? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, if I may quote a certain junior high football coach, we are committed 110%, that's bad math, but it's good football. We are totally committed to that and we are hopeful that we can really do some cutting-edge modern things in Philly, even if it takes a while, that we can do some really cutting-edge modern things because we've seen that a lot of these innovations that we've come with collectively are functional. They're positive. They do good things. So we are all in to work with our partners to try to reduce prison population, take the strain and burden off correctional officers, expand rehabilitative possibilities because that's how you keep driving public safety in a good direction, and it's also how you keep freedom going in a good direction.

Thank you, Mr. DA. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time.

Thank you, Member. In the spirit of my colleague's question, and I'm going to turn it over to Member Harrity, will you continue to work with maybe a committee to look at that bail review process that might be aided to adjust a bit? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Yes, 100%, Councilman.

All right. So that's what I wanted to know. Member Harrity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. Good afternoon -- good morning I think still, right.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. I just have two questions for each of you and I'm going to ask both questions. That way you see where I'm trying to go with it. Mr. Krasner, first what criteria does the DA's office use to prioritize case for prosecution, particularly in terms of nonviolent offenses? And the second part of that question is, are there any initiatives to review or revise sentencing guidelines to promote alternatives to incarceration for certain offenses? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Thank you for the question. I'll answer the second one first. The Sentencing Guidelines Commission is not within our control. There has been a recent revision of the sentencing guidelines. I think the jury is out on whether it's much of an improvement. But the truth is that most sentencing guidelines in most states are not scientific. They're not. They are a bunch of people sitting out around a table explaining how they feel, and that is the history of the sentencing guidelines in Pennsylvania. It is not an answer to say that they're consistent, if they're consistently bad and if they're consistently unscientific. I will say consistency can be a virtue, but not when you consistently treat everybody badly or when you oversentence in certain categories and undersentence in other categories. So that is the story with sentencing guidelines, which are a statewide commission and they do what they do. As for how do we prioritize for prosecution, certain cases, when it comes to, you know, the way I see this and there's a bunch of scholars who kind of see it similarly, there's certain kinds of offenses that I think everybody can agree regardless of politics rip apart society. And those offenses include: Rape, gunpoint robbery, shootings, homicides, those sorts of things. Obviously a bigger category than that, but that's a pretty good start. We all recognize those as terribly harmful for society, things that are worthy of vigorous prosecution and that are also worthy of consequences that are appropriately serious while never taking away the notion of rehabilitation, because it's always possible that there could be some rehabilitation. Then there's a different category of offenses that the United States fell in love with prosecuting. And in many instances, they should have been addressed with a public health approach or they should be addressed in appropriate cases with a level of mercy, with giving people treatment and opportunities for accountability that don't damage their ability to participate in the economy. A lot of misdemeanor offenses, especially the nonviolent ones for people who don't have a lengthy record, are in that category. It's stuff that we want to stop. It's stuff that we don't like, but we have to be very careful and judicious about which ones we're going to put in diversion, which ones we're going to charge at all, which ones we're going to go to the hoop on and try to get a conviction in those particular cases. For me those are two very different categories. They imply different things. And before we had the rise of mass incarceration, we were focused on the stuff that tears apart society. It then became we're just going to focus on everything we don't like. Next thing we know it's 2025. S. Supreme Court has to say and they'd like to lock up homeless people. Really, really, that's where we are now? We're going to go that far backwards and we're going to take everything we don't like after we demolished a mental health system that used to serve them and we're going to blame them for having mental health that we don't treat, we're going to blame them for not having housing? That is just unacceptable to me. So that is a long way of getting at this point: It really involves a very individual analysis.

There is a difference between someone who's been arrested for retail theft many times and has a variety of underlying issues and we have to deal with the mess that we have here, and someone who has engaged in retail theft for the first time and is your typical young thrill-seeking person opportunistically doing something they shouldn't do. Yes, there should be accountability for both of them, but that accountability needs to take different forms if we are to be safe. And everything that we want to do, everything that we do, diversion, prosecution, not charging cases, depending upon what it is, everything has to be directed at how do we get safer. We definitely don't get safer by taking law-abiding people and making them unemployable when they make a mistake. We definitely don't get safer by taking people who like to shoot people and saying, sure, hit the street. That doesn't make us safer. But everything we do should be directed at that. Also, valuing freedom as much as we can have our safety and have our freedom too, that's what we need to do.

And, Commissioner Resnick, just real quick, with the increased budget for the medical care, will you be able to hire more health care staff to return to a functional vacancy rate? And then the second part is, is healthcare staff divided between inmates with substance abuse issues versus nonsubstance abuse issues or are the positions interchangeable? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I'm sorry. I didn't get the last part of that, Councilman.

Is the healthcare staff divided between inmates with substance abuse issues versus nonsubstance abuse issues or are the positions interchangeable, in other words -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So our vacancy rate currently is 8%. Given the overtime that has been worked and given the way that we've been able to structure some of the scheduling, our functional vacancy rate, meaning the hours that we're able to provide care for are more than the hours that we have budgeted. So we actually have a negative functional vacancy rate. We're doing more with the individuals that we have. Our contract for medical care has been increased several million dollars to provide more staffing. The second part of your question, we do have individuals who are specializing in addiction medicine and we have a medical- assisted treatment program that has been called a national model. So people who come into our facilities are evaluated if they score -- what's the score? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Less than 0, more than 10.

State your name for the record please. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: I'm sorry. First Deputy Commissioner Xavier Beaufort. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: What's the test called though? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: It's called the COWS test, Clinical Opioid Withdrawal Scale. COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So anybody who scores even the lowest score on that evaluation will be started in our MAT program and be provided with Suboxone.

So it's Suboxone. You did mention another one -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Oh, it's Brixadi. So that's a 30-day injectable and we provide that for individuals who divert their Suboxone. So they save it and they give it, sell it to other inmates who shouldn't have it, part of the black market. So we provide that as an alternative to Suboxone. I will also say that we are in the process of piloting a medical monitoring system so that every inmate that comes into our custody for the first five days will be on a medical monitoring device. It looks like a big Apple watch and it monitors for respiration, blood pressure, heart rate, movement. So if there is a medical emergency that occurs, somebody's heart rate plummets, their blood pressure spikes, officers will be alerted, medical will be alerted and we'll be able to respond to these emergencies immediately rather than happen upon them the next time someone does a tour. It does not mean that we will have no deaths in custody. But what it does mean is we will be able to respond to emergencies much faster, provide interventions much faster. And before I finish, I don't know if I'll have an opportunity to address it, but your chart, 2024, we've had six in-custody deaths. So I just wanted to put that on the record.

Okay. I think that's good for me. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Member Phillips, I'm going to ask you to defer to Member Lozada because she's speaking on the same line of questioning of Member Harrity. Thank you so much for your indulgence.

Okay.

Member Lozada.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Phillips. And thank you, Councilmember Jones. Just very quickly, you mentioned the medical unit, the pilot program that you all are looking to move forward to. Can you tell me what's the cost of that pilot? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I believe the initial startup phase is 1.2 for the acquisition of all the devices, all of the hardware and all of the systems required to communicate between the devices and our medical and the officers monitoring stations. That was paid for through the Remick sanctions funds. The monitors gave us authority to do that.

And how long is that pilot? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: We are going to pilot it at PICC first for the females because it's a smaller population. Once we prove concept, we will expand it to all male intakes at CFCF, all female intakes at PICC and anybody who our medical staff determines needs to be on consistent monitoring given their medical condition.

And District Attorney Krasner mentioned something earlier that I completely agree with, right. I mean, I think that we need to make sure that we are doing the things that we're doing with this population in a safe and responsible way, right. And if they don't need to be incarcerated, then they shouldn't be. I'm sure that everyone here in chambers and at home know that I have been pushing for enforcement in the Kensington community since I arrived, right. And so, I share the same concerns that some of the residents share and, that is, that we don't want anyone to come in contact with our systems and find themselves never walking out again, right. And so, I had the pleasure of touring the prisons with that Deputy Commissioner Beaufort and the last Administration, learned a great deal of the system itself. At that time, I learned that 60% of the prison population was substance-abuse dependent. Is that still the case? How has that changed? And what are you all doing to ensure that the population that is there and is substance- abuse dependent, that they are safe so that we don't have the incidents that we've had in the past year? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: So I'm happy to hear that you toured our facilities. I would invite you to come back and I would invite all of your colleagues to come and tour the facilities. I don't have a specific figure. Your figure sounds about right of the number of inmates that come into our system who are substance abusers. Many of them are dual diagnosed with substance abuse and mental health issues. I think we are probably the largest mental health treatment facility in the city of Philadelphia and we should not be, but what we do as part of our intake process is we do do the COWS assessment. We do a complete medical examination, blood and urine. And if somebody is substance abuse, we provide them with the MAT program, they're immediately enrolled in our MAT program and placed on Suboxone.

So where do the stories come from, and we've heard them often in our office, right, that whether it's medication related to substance abuse disorder or just regular medication, inmates tell us often and their families tell us often that they are not afforded their medication in the way that it's supposed to be dispensed. Where does that come from? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: General accusation, Councilwoman. I could not tell you. I would need specifics as to who the individual was when this occurred for me to look into it. Our medical unit, as I said, we have over 300 medical providers of various levels. We do medication three times a day. They come to the units. They hand out the medication. It's important to me to ensure that our population receive the health care that they're required to get and that we're obligated to provide. I think we do an outstanding job assessing individuals. Many people come to the prison system and find out that they have a chronic disease for the first time and we're the ones that put them on medication, treat them and provide them with linkages to the community for treatment once they're released. So I don't want to guess. If you were able to provide me with specifics, we could look into those situations.

Have you guys done an assessment upon your arrival there -- did you do an assessment? I'm sure this is not the first time you hear this, right. So have you done an assessment of the stories that we are hearing and what the actual reality of -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Part of the performance measures and the quality and care assessment of our medical team is the timeliness of our medical appointments, the timeliness of our prescriptions and administration of medication. We do evaluate those things. And as far as I know from the data we've received and the reports, we don't have a problem with that.

Okay. Part of what we've talked about in the past as we work towards reducing the prison population, how are we preparing our inmates to reintegrate into society, right. My office is working with a group of returning citizens who spent some time in our system and came out in the middle of the night apparently And have zero documentation, right. They have no birth certificates, no socials, no 16 driver's license, absolutely nothing to help them stay on the path to be contributing citizens to our city. And if we want these men and women to be successful, we need to set them up in a way that they can be, right. So what is the prison and your partners, what are you all doing to ensure that when these individuals are released, that they're released with all of these important documents, that that every citizen should have the right to have, right, and if they're in our custody and we know that they're leaving, are we preparing them to be able to find a job, to be able to rent an apartment, to find work? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: Sure. Thank you for that question, Councilwoman. So I always look at our system as sort of the social service of last resort, right. People come to the prison system because the educational system, the medical system, the mental health system, housing drug and alcohol, their families have failed them, so they wind up in the criminal justice system and ultimately the Philadelphia Department of Prisons. And then we are expected to perform miracles to ensure that when people are released, they don't recidivate. And again, we are not responsible for deciding who comes, the conditions under which they stay, how long they stay, when or how they get released. We don't decide any of that. But understanding that, on average the people in our population have been there four, five, six, seven times in the past. Clearly, what we have been doing in the past wasn't working and we need to do something different. So in that regard, I hired a Deputy Commissioner of Restorative and Transitional Services, Morgan Jaco, who has worked with large state departments of correction, doing re-entry work, doing that sort of work to prepare individuals when they are released, that they do not recidivate. Now, we are different from the Department of Corrections because we don't have people generally for long periods of time. We're a city jail, a county jail system. Our length of stay should be much, much shorter but still we have about 475 people. About 12% of our population are sentenced and we do have people who stay pretrial for a decent period of time. So what I would like to do and what Morgan -- what Deputy Commissioner Jaco has been tasked with doing is taking a total reassessment of our programs and services that we offer, starting from intake. Re-entry should start at intake, and we need to do comprehensive need assessments of individuals when they come through our door. And then we need to provide them with the services, the education, the counseling, and all of the things that our assessment says that they need while they are with us. And then we need to provide them with linkages into the community so those services can continue. And to that end, we've obtained a huge mobile trailer, the Philadelphia Department of prisons Re-entry Center, which we are going to man with our RTS staff, staff from the City's Office of Re-entry Partnerships and community providers, and everybody who gets released will be taken to the trailer. I can't force you to take the services, but the services will be offered. We'll be offering City IDs there when people get released. We'll be offering linkages to community partners based upon your assessment and work that you've done in the facility. We're also working to bring in additional vocational services. We have home health aides, we have CDL. We are exploring the possibility of bringing in a welding program.

We have a facilities maintenance program in addition to the vast array of other programs that we have. So I want us to take a whole comprehensive look at what we're doing to make sure that, as I said, re-entry and assessment start at the very, very beginning, and we're providing the services needed while someone is with us and then providing those important linkages to the community once they're released. So that's what we're doing. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Councilmember, I seldomly do this, but may I just support and build on what the Commissioner just said there. You hear what he is saying. He's saying re-entry begins when you first get to jail. And that's commendable. That's exactly how we need to think about it. But I got another thought. How about it begins when you're arrested? How about before you even get to jail with a bail you cannot pay -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I run the jail. No, I'm just kidding. DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: How about we're doing this in the bail process, which I've already said has its virtues but it has its problems, and then we're also doing it for the people who are up in custody be --

I mean, I understand and I agree. To respond to the Commissioner, no, it's not the prison system's responsibility but there are a lot of people in government that are doing the work, doing more work than it is their responsibility, right. And you have them. Let us start with them not being there to begin with and be able to respond to these things, totally get it. But when they are there, I read somewhere that the stay is 200-plus something days -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: 260 days is our average length of stay, Councilwoman.

260 days. I mean, in 260 days we can at least -- these people as they're being released they have to have a release plan, right. There's a release address. We can at least help them with let me apply for your birth certificate, let me apply for your Social Security and have it sent to your next place of shelter, right. Let me get you a municipal ID so that at least you walking out and you have an ID that is going to put you on the right path. Some of these guys that come into my office have absolutely nothing and they've spent months and months and months in jail. And so, I'm just trying to figure out how do we better prepare these individuals when they are in our systems to be able to walk out and have a true opportunity in succeeding? We can't tell somebody go get a job, go back to school, go get your GED and the person doesn't have any identification, doesn't have a relationship with their families in order to be able to get that information and -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: We do have a service. Councilwoman, we have a contract but the name of the entity escapes me. But they do assist our incarcerated population in obtaining their birth certificates and their Social Security cards while they're with us. I forget the name of the entity. And just to go back to your initial question about medication, sometimes we do get individuals who are on a particular medication in the community. Our formulary might be different. And while we might not have Medication A, formulary is the list of medicines that we are approved to provide. So we might not have Medication A but we have medication B, which is essentially the same thing. It may be a generic, it may be a different manufacturer, but it's for the same condition. It's just a different name. So when people say they didn't have my medicine, maybe we don't, but we have something else that's the same.

Thank you very much. I appreciate -- like I said to Chairman Jones, I'm going to end with this: I recognize that we need to do everything that we can possibly do, which is why we had a conversation about diversions some time at the beginning of the week to figure out how we prevent people from actually getting to your space, right. But when they are in your space, how do we prepare them in a way that we can get them out and that they're successful? I worked in the District Attorney's Office when the MacArthur grant was starting to run. It was great, right, that we were able to reduce the prison population in the way that we were, but what I recognized is that we released a lot of people that just weren't ready, that we didn't allow -- we didn't prepare to be ready to reintegrate. And so, just want to figure out how we continue to reduce the population but prepare people so that we don't see them back on your doorsteps. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Those were pointed conversations. I'm going to let Member Phillips, who has been very patient, get his questions in. But I want to come back to what you said about that help piece and it's not just your burden alone. We get a lot of people that get paid a lot of money to provide these kinds of service that should be working with you. Member Phillips.

Thank you, Chairman Jones. I won't be long. I just wanted to ask Commissioner Resnick a couple questions, most that will connect District Attorney Krasner. You mentioned that 43% of the inmates that come to your correctional facility leave within two weeks. And so, the question I have for you is what particular case processing reforms would you recommend to make sure that these people that are there for only two weeks and they probably shouldn't have been in there for two weeks so we don't have to -- that can help us with population issues? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: The number comes from, Councilman, when we take a look at a monthly snapshot of everyone who was released during that month, we age how long they were in population. And 43% of them are only there for the first days. They're 5 released within the first two 6 weeks. 7 So a decision has been 8 made by the criminal justice 9 system. I don't know which 10 particular individuals, I guess 11 it's a combination, that this 12 individual does not present a 13 danger to public safety and they 14 are likely to return to court to participate in their matter. And I agree with the DA. Whatever that process is that got them to be released, whatever we're doing, why can't that be done a week sooner, 10 days sooner so those people don't have to come at all or if they do, they're there for a much, much shorter stay, because coming to the jail disrupts an individual's livelihood. It interferes with their ability to earn a living. It interferes with their family. It's traumatic. It's just very disruptive. And for us, it's a huge upfront cost to do an intake. It's a complete medical evaluation. It's a custody evaluation. We do social services evaluations, mental health evaluations. If we could avoid all of those costs because those individuals just don't come that would be a win. But to specifically answer your question, I don't know enough about why each one of those individuals is released to say that it is this process that should be changed, so we could do a deeper dive into that.

Yeah, that's probably one of the most poignant things you said today. And I think because that is our everyday aunts and uncles and family members who are put in some system and it's like over and over again it's happening and they're not even supposed to be there. And so, I would try to implore you to figure out maybe you can set up a team that can really figure this out with the courts and also with maybe the District Attorney's team to figure out how do we not spend that money because that seems like a headache too. Then I just have two more questions. Is it possible for you to show -- well, let me just say this: You know most residents in the city of Philadelphia are very visual people, which is why the Mayor has put together this plan that's very visual in terms of all of her initiatives. And people can't see the correctional facilities improving because they're not taking the tours, they're not there, right. I know you can't get everybody's pictures in it. Is there a way that maybe through social media or press conferences or something visual that you can literally show pictures of the before and the after of some of the facilities to show that that humane treatment that you say is happening is happening? COMMISSIONER RESNICK: We do have a social media presence. I have several -- I have -- what's Mitchell's title? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER BEAUFORT: Communications -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: He's our Communications Director, so they are responsible for getting out our good word. But unfortunately, Councilman, and I forget whether it was Councilman O'Rourke or Chairman Jones who said it in the beginning of the remarks, bad things are what make the news. Good stories don't. So you will not read in The Inquirer that our inmate population is down and that our employee, our correctional staff, is up and there's more time out-of-cell and we're spending more on medical and maintenance and the facilities are getting better. They just don't publish that story.

You're right. And I think this is where your team could potentially take a little bit more of a lead, because you have a lot of work to do already. But I think the idea may be is your team has to start creating the news for yourself. Because at one time, the Philadelphia Parking Authority was known as the worst enemy in the city of Philadelphia. Now, we have about 40% -- COMMISSIONER RESNICK: I thought you were going to say now it's me.

I mean, no. I mean, no, I don't think so. But people, you know, we can make a difference, right. But, yeah, they were. But Rich Lazer and his team have now done all of this great quality-of-life work and people are like, yeah, Parking Authority, Parking Authority. It's still some people upset about tickets, but there's a good percentage of them really happy about them. And I think now it's like me, how do you become the biggest cheerleader to talk about all of these staff. I didn't know those staff improvements happened, right. So now, it's like how to use a communications team, I need to get this out here, there's too much negative out here, right, because that's going to change people's narrative, perception of your department just from our perspective for what I'm hearing from you to help out. And my last question is, I'm just very curious about -- well, I guess it still ties into, oh, District Attorney Larry Krasner. When we're talking about these pretrial diversion programs and mental health intervention programming, Commissioner Resnick talks about ways to keep individuals outside out of the prison and I know you mentioned a lot of your programs. But is there a way in which we can find a way to do something for the retail theft program? Yes, you don't want to incarcerate the first person that steals the pack of chewing gum from the store. However, we got to -- in order to prevent them from doing that again is there a way we can put them into a community program that is almost that kind of shows them the dangers of what they're doing so that they don't have to go back and do that again? So it's like immediately that is your repercussion, you have to go into this program that is almost like a scared-straight program. Because the idea is that they may do it for the second, third or fourth time and then they're working -- and in Commissioner Resnick's correctional facility after a while. So I think we should try to hit on the first time hard. What if that diversion program has a really hard diversion program so it doesn't happen again? DISTRICT ATTORNEY KRASNER: Well, thank you for the question, Councilmember Phillips, and I am picking up what you're putting down here. The reality is that most diversionary programs require more of a defendant than a sentence of incarceration, which usually means sit in your cell and don't go anywhere. So there is accountability in these programs. I think the aspect that you're talking about is something that in a meeting with the courts we could talk about incorporating into AMP, the Accelerated Misdemeanor Program, which already exists as a diversionary program for low-level misdemeanors. Obviously the police diversionary program -- and I say this with respect and love, I'm not criticizing it -- but it has taken a lot of the people who used to be arrested for misdemeanors and has put them into other treatment programs. So it's probably worth talking to the police department as well. I understand right now they're stepping back from PAD or at least I hear they're stepping back from PAD for retail theft. But I will say that's the kind of thing on an evidence basis it works, that could be incorporated into things we already have. It's a much easier lift than creating a completely new program. It's certainly something we could do right away. And then if we wanted to build towards a different program, fine. But I do believe that AMP is a positive program. I think there are a lot of other specialty diversion programs that address specific needs. For example, Drug Court isn't just diversion. It's also conviction and it's also people having special conditions due to significant mental health needs, that sort of thing. I think the suggestion that you're making could be incorporated at a number of different levels and could have benefits.

Thank you --

Thank you, Member Phillips. So without any other questions, we're going to go to the next panel. But all of these points that you are making, we get a second bite. So if you put them down and we send them collectively, we can get measured progress on each of them. And there's some great suggestions that I'm hearing that might create coalitions. I really love the one about giving people, returning citizens a helping hand and working with some of our stakeholders that get paid a lot of money to do some of this stuff that shouldn't be your primary responsibility. But if we start with people on their first day of incarceration to prepare them for their last day of incarceration and put the pieces together, recidivism goes down and I just see it. Yes, Member Lozada.

I appreciate that comment, Mr. Chair, which is why I think it's extremely important that we look at our diversion programs, right, figure out, how do we combine some of them who overlap, some who are not doing what they said they're supposed to do and figure out how we invest in them in a way that we're going to connect our returning citizens and provide the necessary supports, right. I think as we enter into the budget season I mentioned to DA Krasner that we need to look at some of those diversion programs, right, that we need to better utilize AMP court, right, that we need to be able to connect people in a way where we're really giving them an opportunity to be successful so that they don't find themselves in that vicious cycle.

Well said. With that, if there are no other questions, we are going to ask Ms. Stack to -- and thank you. Thank you for this input. We heard you and we are going to digest the process and send it back to you. All right. Ms. Stack.

Leigh Owens from the Pennsylvania Prison Society and Dawan Williams from the NOMO Foundation.

I want to thank everybody for their patience. As we get through this, we have a hard stop that we're going to -- we're going to say more with less words. And if we could summarize testimonies, that would be helpful as well. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

Come in, have a seat. I don't know the order. Ms. Stack.

Leigh Owens will be first, followed by Dawan Williams.

Can you state your name for the record and please begin your testimony. And we are blessed with the attendance of Rue Landau, our Councilmember for the record. Thank you so much for your patience.

Good morning, members of Council. My name is Lee Owens, and I want to thank you all for the space and for allowing us this opportunity and also thank you for acknowledging the importance and the severity of this particular issue. So thank you for this again. My name is Leigh Owens. I serve as the Education and Advocacy Director for the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Founded in 1787 by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush, the Pennsylvania Prison Society is the nation's oldest human rights organization. For 230 years, we have protected and promoted the health, safety and dignity of incarcerated Pennsylvanians and their families. We're the only organization in the state with statutory authority to enter any prison or jail and meet with incarcerated people privately. Our staff of and our 7 volunteer network of 250 are on the 8 ground in all 85 state and county 9 correctional facilities bearing 10 witness to prison conditions. For 11 the last several years, we have 12 conducted quarterly walkthroughs of 13 the Philadelphia Department of 14 Prisons, and we publish summaries 15 of what we hear and what we see on 16 those walkthroughs. org. What we've seen on those walkthroughs is a department with too many people in its custody and too few staff, leading to facilities that are unsafe for people who are incarcerated and unsafe for prison staff. Now, what do we mean by unsafe? Year after year since the pandemic we have more people dying in the Philly jails than die in the New York city jails. More deaths in Philly even though New York is five times our size and incarcerates at half the rate of Philadelphia. In 2024, six deaths in the Philly prisons, including one homicide, something which was never heard of before the pandemic. In 2024, Rikers, which houses almost double as many people, had five deaths and no murders. Fatalities are obviously the most extreme symptom of an unsafe facility. What else do we know? Well, on our walkthroughs we have learned that incarcerated people are often left unsupervised on nights and weekends. Rather than spending most of their days in the day room or in programming like before the pandemic, on a good day people are now let out of their cells for three hours, but even this isn't a guarantee. On our most recent walkthrough in December, 50% of the people we interviewed said they had gone more than hours without 11 getting out of their cell. " This problem is 16 particularly pronounced on holidays 17 and the days of big sporting events 18 such as Super Bowl. " 24 Equally troubling is the majority of people we have spoken with who say that it takes over a week to get a response for requests for medical care, and the majority of people we speak with report witnessing fights and overall feeling unsafe. People in Philadelphia custody are not provided enough food to eat. They are not able to make phone calls daily and are not given access to a functioning law library and are not regularly given clean clothing and bedding. This is a problem of too many people in prison for too few staff. Me, myself, I am a former resident of Rikers Island where I spent one year for carrying an unlicensed gun in New York City. What I can tell you about my time at Rikers over two decades ago was this: It was comparatively humane. We were not warehoused like people are in Philadelphia today. Although Rikers has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous facilities in the country, most of my time spent there I felt safe and only witnessed two fights between residents of the facility. We were able to get clean sheets weekly and I never saw one fight or even a nonviolent dispute over phone access, unlike what we know goes on in Philadelphia jails. Most of our days were spent out of the cell, largely working or in classes. I was not locked up during the day hours. I never had trouble getting access to a phone to call my family. It was a different world from what we now have in Philly.

While the Pennsylvania Prison Society is delighted to see that progress is being made to onboard new staff and stem staff departure, it will be years before the jail is staffed to save standards. It'll be a decade before there are enough experienced staff to run a system of this size well. Simply put, to safely run this prison system over the next five years, the number of people in custody must be reduced substantially so that one of the four prison buildings currently in operation can be closed and staff can be redeployed to the remaining three prison buildings. Several of the other people testifying today can discuss what can be done to safely reduce the number of people in custody, but what the Prison Society can testify to is that Philadelphia cannot hire its way out of this problem. If we are to ever have jails that had any semblance of safety, let alone programming and sufficient medical care, we must reduce the number of people in custody. So thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. We will hold questions until the entire panel testifies. Please state your name for the record and begin your testimony.

Thank you. My name is Dawan Williams. I currently serve as the Vice- president of the Division of Restorative Justice for the NOMO Foundation. NOMO is an acronym for New Options, More Opportunities. And I want to start this off by saying thank you to the ladies and gentlemen of this honorable historical City Council here in Philadelphia. Thank you all for having us this morning. Usually when I come and I testify, I do public speaking or doing something of this nature, I go off top, I speak with you on the heart. I don't follow a script, but this issue right here before you today is that serious where me, myself, I had to sit down for a few days, hold my schedule up, put this on paper to make sure that the record reflects clearly. All right. So I'm just asking ladies and gentlemen of the Council just to bear with me for just a little bit. Because me personally, I don't like to sound like I'm reading from something because this issue on mass incarceration, it affects me personally. So I myself, I was incarcerated for 10 years, 6 days, 12 hours, 37 minutes and 13 seconds straight. I was released on October 6, 2014 at 8:37 in the morning. I knew absolutely nothing about a cell phone, nothing about an iPhone, nothing about a tablet. When I went away to prison in 2004, none of that stuff was out. No 6 social media, no Instagram, no 7 nothing. Nobody is in the prison teaching that and properly preparing you for that for the day you walk out of prison. So although I may develop into a successful career over a decade later, that kind of stuff right there held me up six months to a year. So what we all know and what we're hearing about our incarcerated brothers and sisters right now, what they faced over the last five years or so since the pandemic, our honorable Councilmembers and people in the room, I see a lot of people here that is doing boots on the ground work, so we all know how serious this is. It's very upsetting, very upsetting. So I know the work that each one of you do personally and thank you for that. I see you on the ground every day. A lot of our work, to the people in this room and to the honorable members of Council, is geared towards children of incarcerated parents. So if we don't provide enough services to their parents while they're inside, we're not ending the cycle. That means we got to do more to fix State Road. Like the brother just said, it has to happen on day 1, not when you're ready to go out. You have to prepare parents to come home and be parents. All of that stuff have to be going on. One example I want to bring to your attention this morning, the literacy rate for justice-impacted individuals, not only for all individuals in the city of Philadelphia, but particularly for justice-impacted men and women that are sitting on State Road right now that can't even do their timetables, can't even read from a piece of paper right now, these are the people we're talking about open the doors to and letting home, right. The thing on the screen from 2023 says 4700 inmates in custody, right. And I think the Commissioner said it's down to 3600, if I'm not mistaken, 3600, 3700. So if we let 700 people go tomorrow, where are they going, what are they going to do? Where they going to work at? It's bigger than an ID. It's bigger than my Social Security card, my birth certificate. What am I going to do? Where do I go? After everybody's happy you home, aye, hugs, kisses, fried chicken, Kool-Aid. Now, I'm sitting on the side of the bed, Councilmembers. Everybody went to work. I'm like, damn, ain't nobody leave no 7 transpass money, ain't nobody show me no directions, nobody's allowed to come into the prison to help me on this iPad to walk me through it. Nobody showed me the bus system. Nobody showed me the transit app. It's new buses. When I left, it was the C bus. I come back, it's the 14. Stay on script, y'all. Part of the answer is getting them out, but the second part is what comes next.

The biggest question that we need to ask ourselves when it comes to re-entry is what do people have to look forward to when they are coming home. And remember, the Commissioner said it's up to six hours a day now out of your cell. On a good day, we was there -- they barely came to works. A lot of different reasons, a lot of different stuff going on. But people that are coming home have only been outside of a locked door for two to three hours a day. Even if you only been there a week or two, it's scientifically proven that your brain has already began to deteriorate. In the long-term, we need to shift resources away from what isn't working, and we're not here to call nobody out, we're not here to take anybody's paycheck, we're not here to say you're not doing this and you need to be doing that, enough of that has went on like. Like our honorable District Attorney said, enough of that has went on, the finger pointing to this, to that right. Part of that money should be going to returning citizens to help them rebuild their lives and find real careers. When I got out in 2014, the cost for a prisoner was about $35,000 per debt per year. If you had medical issues or you was over 50 years old, the cost was anywhere from 55,000 a year to beyond. Now, we are 11 years into it, and if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's up to about 50,000 a day -- or 50,000 a year or something ridiculous like that. What if we took 30,000 and allocated the same 30 that was going there to pay for a bathroom for you to do absolutely nothing, to sit there and just rot and just no disrespect to nobody but just become dumber, I'm going to take that 40 grand that was allocated for you to be locked in the bathroom and nobody comes to work, I'm going to take that 40 and invest that to you so that when you return home, we got people on the ground intentionally doing the work, not saying just go show up there and they're going to get you an ID. No, we got to take brothers down to PennDOT. We got to take them down to where the resource is at. We got to hold them by the hand, take them to the therapist. We got to take them up to the school, introduce them to the principal. We got to sit them down. We got to give them etiquette classes. We need to be able to go into the prison and teach social media etiquette. So when they do drop your bell and you come home, you don't sit on this tablet and laptop and do the same daggone thing. Because we can talk about the resources, but if you don't fix me, I'm not going to no resources, people. My brain won't allow me to. Its resources now in Philadelphia. It's no reason for foolishness. But guess what? I can't read. I can barely count. I don't know my multiplication tables. I can't sit still longer than 10 minutes. I can't stay off of this because nobody came and properly taught me the downfall of that. Where am I going? I can go to any City Council Office in the city of Philadelphia, and most of you, no 20 matter what District a constituent is for, especially you, Curtis Jones, you'll help anybody. This is what we know. This is what -- huh?

(Inaudible).

Well, I'm just letting it be known. I say that to say, you guys help anybody, I see you on the ground. But if I don't know to come ask for the help, if I'm not comfortable with coming to ask for the help, if I go to the ER and just sit there and don't tell them why I'm here, how am I going to receive the services? We got to fix this mental health thing. I never even thought I would even be saying that. I was one of the guys on the ground just saying, you got to do right, you got to do right, you got to go to work, you got to go to your program, you got to go get your kids. They're not understanding that no more. That's long gone and out the window. I've seen the importance of this and the research agrees. I've sat down and did some research, ladies and gentlemen. We all know that this makes sense. Without money to support yourself, how can you stay on the right path? Anybody jump in and answer that. If I don't have no money, I got a record long as Broad Street, right, I've been in prison and, remember, the county jail is 50 times worse than state prison -- where my backup at? The county jail is 50 times worse than state prison. If I'm coming out with nothing but my ID and my birth certificate, what's really my future, y'all? What training have I really had? Where do I go report to? Who keeps a few dollars in my pocket while I'm getting myself together? I'm in the halfway house and I want to do right, but I can't. I'm almost done. This is already being done in other places, y'all. Okay. The Center of Employment Opportunities distributed 7 million during the pandemic through 8 a returning citizen stimulus. And 9 New York is considering a bill 10 which would give guaranteed income 11 up to 2500 a month for six months 12 after release. 13 Now, let me stop right 14 there. Although that might not 15 seem like a lot of money to 16 respected hard-working people in 17 this room right now we know that 18 2500 a month our bills will laugh 19 at us. But getting out of prison, 20 anybody came home from prison 21 before in the room? Anybody hadn't 22 come home from prison before? That 23 would have helped you out, 24 brothers? (Yes.)

$2,500 is a start. And in New York, they got paperwork on the table right now that'll give a brother or sister at least you got 2500 for six months, and a lot of us can take that and go win with it. We just need an opportunity, right. Researchers at a University of Penn studied similar programs in other states. Here's what they found: They found that this can cut recidivism while improving housing and food security. We need to do this here. Because I got money in my hands, I can go food shopping. I can bring some groceries in the house. Although I can't contribute to. mortgage right now, Councilman, at least I can feed myself. At least I don't have to tap into your little bit that you got saved up. I got car fare now. Let's not forget. It takes anywhere from 80 to 100-plus to live comfortably in Philadelphia. Rent is up there. Cost of living is up there. It takes 80 or above just to keep you here. We ain't talking about splurging and going out. We talking about just to be able to have a place to stay. We ain't talking driving a car or nothing. So if a man or woman returning home from incarceration, if they can't even barely get 2500 for six months until I get right, just help me get right, what are we doing. Not only do returning citizens need income, they need mentorship, supportive services too. So many organizations across the city are working to provide but we need more support to meet the needs of the community. We need for this City Council to aggressively, historically put the money where it's supposed to be. So that way when these men and women are returning home from incarceration, you got people 7 over here, you got 50 over here, 8 you got 20 ready to work around the 9 clock. This ain't just for four 10 hours. This is just not for a 11 couple hours, Councilman. This is 12 ongoing. 13 I've been home now 11 14 years. I just celebrated 10 years 15 successfully completed parole, and 16 that's because of you. That's 17 because of this City Council put 18 programs in place to properly help 19 men and women returning home. They 20 gone now. It's no paychecks, it's 21 no mentorships. That's how me and 22 this brother love met, mentoring a 23 group of young kids trying to keep 24 them out of trouble. I remember a few years back when we did the Kobe Bryant mural, right, in your District, Councilman, when you went and talked to those mothers that were returning citizens and those fathers that was returning citizens and those kids who were the children of the returning citizens. And they said, thank you, Councilman, because without this opportunity I was on my way back. And you felt that, and you said we're going to work vigorously as a community to change this. So for me, whether it be Steps to Success, whether it be the FACT program, Real Street Talk, I can name Unity and Community, everybody that's in here, I see everybody that's in here, we need these programs properly supported because I know what the sisters going to do. I see a lot of them in here. If they're properly supported, when men and women come home, they're going to make sure that they wrap arms around them for six months, right. When returning citizens need mentors that they can trust or talk to about everything from coming home to family, to getting on the computer, to finding a job to I'm stressed out, I'm ready to go back. She ain't answering the phone. She told me I need to bring my son back. Just a whole lot of work in order for the resources that you want to put in place. In order for them to become effective, there's a lot of work that needs to be done. But it's so much more. A lot of the time you don't even know what to ask for. A lot of our brothers and sisters that are coming home, they don't even know what to ask for. They don't know which way is up. Why? A lot of that work needs to start in the prison. So I don't want to be too much longer, right. We need positive momentum to change direction.

Right now State Road is denying people their human rights. When they get out, they have to find a way to survive. Please, ladies and gentlemen of this Council, do everything you can do to aggressively, historically -- and when I say historically, that's because I've had the opportunity to travel this country in the last 11 years and everywhere we go, my partner Ricky and I, love that brother, everywhere we go, Kentucky, Chicago, Detroit, they're all giving shout-outs to Philadelphia City Council because this was the restorative justice city first. Y'all were the ones first to make it a thing and make it popular. And then not only our District Attorney, who's a historic district attorney, I think together collectively thank y'all for listening to me. Sorry for being long-winded. I'm speaking for 300,000-plus returning citizens that are active registered voters in the city of Philadelphia, so I have to make sure that I'm representing them well. We need your help. We need the resources where they are supposed to be so we can end mass incarceration. I'll take any questions. )

Before I recognize Member Phillips and probably Member O'Rourke, congratulations. We are proud of you coming home and becoming a positive influence in that community. And I see you too, been in rooms with you and I appreciate what you do. I want to thank the Pennsylvania Prison Society because you're the first restorative justice program in the history of this country. That goes from your art programs I know about you. Your Martin Luther King Day celebration is legendary as it relates not just to the holiday but how it applies to us today, so we appreciate it. Member Phillips.

I think we found -- thank you, Dawan. I think we found a potential long- term solution for our prisons in your city, and that's working with you, right. And I think honestly -- and I see that. And Commissioner Resnick, is here, and one of the things I'm thinking about is when people leave the prison if they have a partnership that we can have with someone like yourself that can literally we can say, hey, when you leave, there's a gentleman named Dawan Williams or Prison Society, go to there, you can get your ID, you can get food, you know, food stamps, medical care, all that and more, get re-entry services and coach them up on that, right. And that could be something that could be a long-term program so when they leave, it's almost like they're met with somebody as they're leaving as opposed to they're just empty, you know what I mean.

Just empty and they left to figure it out on their own. Plus, Councilman, not only do you have -- the 50,000 that was allocated for you in there, the Prison Society has that now. So each person has a bottom line of whatever the number is, 30,000 25,000, whatever it is, when you report to the Prison Society or you report to NOMO or you report to Unity in the Community or any one of our beloved Philadelphia partner programs, they already have the funding because they already knew 10 people getting released this month. So he already got 250,000. He's got 10 names, 10 PP numbers, they report there to get their services, and they get money allocated and they already got the mentor signed up with the debit cards and they taking them out, they had PennDOT, they at the suit store, they get a uniform, job interview, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, mentoring, counseling, everything, until that allocated money that you would have been paying for, for a bathroom, until that money runs out. And we can say six months, we can say a year.

I would be supportive of if we have the funding to do this in our city, I was supportive of something like providing a debit card for food, clothing and initial shelter. Something like that would be remarkable for our returnees. And so, I just wanted to stress that. And the last question that I have for you is the mentorship programs. Can you name the mentorship programs that exist? I don't know -- I mean, I know FACT is in the prison --

Fathers And Children Together. No, we're here too. We're here on the streets as well. But again --

Yeah, but why don't they like -- what is the disconnect between the --

I'm about to tell you.

-- prison and then the outside -- why aren't they getting this information, Dawan?

Here you go, the resources and the funding is not there for me to be a proper, effective mentor program outside of being Dawan Williams from FACT. If we had the proper funding and the proper support and the proper funding process, then, yes, I would be able to name five or six different mentor programs with 20 mentors on deck. But until we 21 receive the proper funding and the 22 proper resources and the proper 23 system, that's not really going to 24 be able to happen. So I cannot -no, Councilman, I cannot name an effective on-paper mentor program with statistics and facts and data.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman.

Chair recognizes Member Landau.

Thank you so much, Chairman. Thanks to this whole joint panel. Thank you both for your testimony. It was incredible and we hear you loud and clear. There's got to be more programming on the inside to get people ready for the outside --

Yes, ma'am.

-- and the second they leave on the outside, they got to have the resources to feel strong and equipped and ready to participate in society. I've been working on issues of re-entry with Councilmember Jones for many, many years. And I do see that we are kind of at a crisis point right now but one that can be fixed. This is the moment where we've got a new Prison Commissioner, we've got a new Administration. We can move this in the right direction with the proper resources, with the proper staffing and also helping to support the funding for folks helping on the inside and coming on the outside. So thank you again for telling your stories and telling your truths, and we hear you loud and clear.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Thank you.

Thank you. I would ask you 50 more questions, but we have other panels. I appreciate you sharing and I appreciate you -- let me ask the question, when my member puts together these subcommittees and also some follow-ups, would you be willing to participate to kind of steer us in the right direction? We need your help. We need your lived experiences and your expertise in this area. Member.

Yes. Thank you, Member Jones -- thank you, Chairman, excuse me. And again, I want to thank both of these panelists for sharing their professional personal expertise on addressing this crisis. It's always good to see Black men, brothers leading in the way that you're leading. Leigh, it's good to see you in your leadership role.

You as well, sir.

Dawan, you came here dressed like a champion today.

Two-time champ, two in six years. Y'all better act like y'all know. Y'all in title town, Super Bowl town.

Somebody say, Go birds in the house. (Go Birds.)

Let me get to these questions. Mr. Williams, I thank you for the point that you made and I just want to make sure that I get it even clearer on the record. What you're saying is that folks who are coming home that you can give them all the programs and things they want to, but if you don't give the people money, then they are going to be behind the eight ball as it relates to trying to get ahead in life; is that accurate?

They're going to be off the pool table, sir. Not even behind the eight ball. You're not even in the game. You don't have nothing.

Thank you. Thank you. Dr King talked about before they killed him a universal basic income as a basic, basic thing that needs to be provided to folks in society writ large if we're going to address the issue of poverty. But I think even if we don't do universal, if it's a focus on folks who are returning home to putting them back in society, then certainly of all the things that we give them in a capitalist society, we ought to give them some money to be able to play on the board.

Absolutely.

Mr. Owens, we often hear that due to the great work that has been done to significantly reduce mass incarceration locally, that the folks still left inside "deserve to be there." Does that idea conflict at all with what you're seeing inside and in the data?

I think it does to an extent. We visit these facilities regularly and what we see, we see people still being arrested for being, frankly speaking, drug addicts, being addicted to substances. We see people incarcerated that just can't make bail, as District Attorney Krasner said earlier. So I think that we're incarcerating poverty to an extent, we're incarcerating drug abuse and we're incarcerating things that there could be alternatives. We're not exhausting the alternatives to incarceration that we know exist, that we know in many cases will be cheaper than actual incarceration. So to answer your question directly, I would say, yes, we are seeing substantial cases as we interview folks that are incarcerated about the reasons that they're there, right. And frankly, we could be doing a lot more whether it's in the courts or prosecutorial and just overall to actually engage in less incarceration on many, many levels.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Can I say one more thing before we move on please? I just want to for the record.

Please.

I would love to be a part of anything that the prison system would like to move forward with visually, because what Councilman Phillips said was very important and I abide by that every day. The reason why our program has had a lot of somewhat of success is because the power of social media. People see what we're doing every day. So we want to assemble a media crew that abide by the laws, the rules and regulations of the prison that'll go in, capture some legal stuff to show the before, the after and the process as to what's going on and what people can expect, I think that would help the Mayor and I think that will help the residents of the city of Philadelphia and I'm available for that. Thank y'all.

Thank you. One of the things that we have to do as a follow-up to this Committee is we need to do financial modeling that proves a pound of prevention is worth -- an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, that these programs measure up, and that $50,000 a year that you talk about, that we can save on that. Because there are two types of elected officials in the United States these days: Those who want to save souls and those who want to save money. Both of them need cost accounting. We have to figure out and prove that by what they do on the streets -- and I said it with the District Attorney -- 39% reduction in homicides is a real, tangible number. How do we do that? Through the investments. We have to model this in a way that proves the theories. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ms. Stack, would you please read the next panel to testify.

Chief Defender Keisha Hudson from the Defender's Association of Philadelphia; Robert Saleem Holbrook from the Abolitionist Law Center; and Sue Meng Ye from the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

Member Hudson, we're going to stop putting you last. This is the second hearing that you had to wait patiently and I appreciate it. But the next time we have a hearing, you're going first. All right. You have my word. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Always good to be here, Council.

Can you state your name for the record and begin your testimony. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Good afternoon. Keisha Hudson, Chief Defender of the Defender Association of Philadelphia. I want to thank Council and all the members for addressing the urgent need to safely reduce the Philadelphia's jail population. The jail of course as Commissioner Resnick said, does not control who is detained, how long they stay or whether they can be diverted to treatment. Those systems rest with the courts and justice system partners. That is why the Defender Association has made it a priority to push for solutions that get people out of jail faster or prevent them from being detained in the first place. Some key initiatives: Preliminary arraignment. If you have not observed our preliminary arraignment proceedings in Philadelphia, I urge you to. Our clients appear by video. The hearings are staffed by the Defender Association hours a 18 day, 7 days a week. We have mere 19 minutes to consult with our clients 20 before they appear for their 21 hearing. And most hearings last 22 around two minutes before bail is 23 set. 24 In 50% of the cases, the DAO is asking for $1 less than 1 million in bail. With support from justice system partners, we are communicating with our clients, but we have to take a look at what happens in arraignment court, the resources that we are deploying in arraignment court and ensuring that our clients get the proper time and process where we are asking clear questions before we make a determination that is going to destroy their lives, their families, their children's lives, their communities, about whether or not this is someone we should be detaining and sending to State Road. The next part of the work we do are early bail review hearings. These hearings, as you have heard, are held within five days of arrest and they allow the court to reassess bail decisions and determine who can safely be released. Last year we staffed 4500 early bail review hearings, making sure again that people aren't unnecessarily held in jail. I want to make clear, as it is budget season, and I have had the pleasure of meeting with each of you before me now about my budget, that our MacArthur funding ends on June 30, 2025 and we absolutely need to sustain early bail review if you are to continue our successful decarceration efforts. And that ask, line item ask is $750,000 to sustain MacArthur funding beyond June 30th. Then we have a new initiative, and I want to thank the courts including Judge Karen Simmons, who has led the efforts on this to do emergency bail hearings but we only do them once a week, and they are staffed by people including me and Andrew Pappas, because we do not have the attorneys to dedicate to this one-day-a-week hearing. We can increase the number of emergency bail hearings we do, but we absolutely need the resources to be able to do that. And to date, we have successfully through early bail hearings gotten 150 people out of our prisons on State Road. FIR, the Forensic Intensive Recovery program, the courts are taking a new look at FIR. The city is redesigning its FIR contract along with our office, along with the prisons, the courts and the DAO, but right now it is taking about two months for our clients to actually get their FIR evaluations where they can now be safely released, so we're taking a look at how we can increase the number of practitioners that work for FIR under PHMC, but we need to really shorten that amount of time that it's taking for FIR, which was put in place to get people safely back into their communities. It's taken way too long for those evaluations to take place. I'm actually going to exchange my seat now really quickly for Elisa Downey-Zayas because in 2024 it was with her work at the Defender Association that we for the first time ever in the history of our organization got support to do re-entry work.

And then I want to close by talking a little bit about some support that we need to continue to do the work that we do with the Defenders. Ms. Downey-Zayas.

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

Thank you, Councilmembers. My name is Elisa Downey-Zayas. I'm the Director of Alternative Sentencing for the Defender Association. And when I stepped into this role, I told Chief Defender Hudson that it was my dream to grow out of re-entry practice. It's something that we've never done. It's something that has been a glaring problem for some time because there's a lot of re-entry work that goes on in this city, but the lack of predictability and knowledge surrounding when someone is going to get released makes re-entry work hard. You can pour resources into someone in the prison, but if you can't predict or ensure that they're going to be paroled on a set date, you can't do any warm handoffs, you can't connect them to services because you don't know when they're going to get out in order to transition from behind the Whalls to their communities. So part of what we did is we applied for a grant with PCCD. We have a re-entry specialist who's a licensed clinical social worker who works with clients before they're released in order to do a needs- based assessment. She then meets with them several times in order to develop what resources would be appropriate for these clients to be referred to and then contacts the organizations that would appropriately fill their needs. She then schedules appointments along with an administrative assistant and then does up to one year of post-release follow-up with case management services, which is supported by an administrative assistant to follow up to make sure they're attending appointments, make sure they are complying with the conditions of their sentence because what we found is not only do people need support on reentering to better themselves as people, but also they need to understand how to comply with probation. And often the re-entry team and the re-entry partners that are working with these individuals are not always helping them complete the conditions of their sentence. So we have the re-entry specialist work with a lawyer in the office, mainly me, but others who will go through this is what the client needs to do to be paroled, these are the conditions they have to meet upon parole. So this is an area we would like to expand. Right now we have one licensed clinical social worker to work with the entire sentence population. Obviously she's not able to work with anyone. The referral process is very competitive. We also need specialists. People who are older than 65, people speak Spanish, emerging adults, people with mental health issues, those will all need specialists to provide targeted re-entry services. But this is something that we are very proud to have and I think is something that can make connections with community organizations and also take advantage of the City's resources that are already in place in order to provide better parole planning and reduce recidivism. And with that, I'll turn it back to Chief Defender Hudson. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: I was just here last week to talk about the number of our adult population being 44,000 and we have 29 social workers for that entire adult population. And Commissioner Resnick says, a quote that I wrote down, that the jails are the social -- the last resort for social services, which is pretty profound in in my book because it shouldn't be. We know this population better than anyone. Many of the people on State Road, we have represented before, whether they were children, whether they were in the dependency system or the delinquency system or the adult system. We know what brought them into the system. And if we can increase supports in all of these areas to safely decarcerate, increase the number of social workers that we have so we can do case management support, increase our ability to do re-entry work, we can make a difference. It is budget season. You know my ask was very, very high.

But when I think looking at the other stakeholders in the system and what we are investing in, I think it's a reasonable request that we increase the resources of the Defender Association to support the people on State Road who are there because systems have failed them. Thank you.

You've been consistent. We were just sharing back in the Kensington Caucus the same need for what's going on in Kensington is the same need for the population in general. And it's 29 new social workers. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: I would love to double my social work population. So if you have 2.5 million, I could take the check today happily and run away. But, yes.

So are there any questions for this panel -- oh, I'm sorry. State your name for the record and begin your testimony.

Good afternoon. My name is Robert Saleem Holbrook. I'm the Executive Director of the Abolitionist Law Center. Thank you for convening this important hearing on decarcerating the county jail. I have a bunch of prepared notes, but I don't want to be redundant because I feel like the people that preceded me really touched on the abuses, the trauma, the deaths and ineptitude and in some cases, incompetence of the county jail. I also know that there were some people that testified about the hard work that the staff is doing there, so we recognize everyone that preceded us. What I want to do is talk about some ways that the county, particularly the City, can -- steps that the City can take to decarcerating the county jail. And one thing that we heard, a consistent theme throughout this hearing, is that decarcerating the county jail and public safety is compatible. They work together. They go hand in glove. Despite efforts to increase the staffing in the jails, 42% of those positions remain unfilled. This was according to the court's monitoring report in October of 2024. What's even more where staffing has increased in Philadelphia's county jails, conditions have not necessarily improved. Rikers Island, one of the deadliest jails in our nation, has a staff-to-incarcerated person ratio of nearly 1:1, yet remains a dangerous and abusive environment. This isn't unprecedented. The Philadelphia Police Department has 1500 vacancies right now, right. The county jail is running at 35% to 40% of vacancy of correctional office despite offering a signing bonus, right. We hear about NFL players getting large signing bonuses. I believe that the signing bonuses for a new correctional officer like 10% to 15%, right, and they still can't fill those vacancies. So this is telling us that this is a problem that's larger than just the county jail. Why they can't fill these vacancies, right. It could be a problem with actual people being paid living wages in this country, right. It could be a problem with people don't want to police their own communities because they see a broken justice system every day, whether it's when they step out their front door and they're stepping over someone who's suffering substance abuse on their steps, right, someone from their community that's not getting help, whether it's someone who has a loved one serving extreme sentencing, life without parole, something I was once serving, or if it's someone that had their loved ones snatched, right. And instead of their pain being addressed, instead they're being called out to support more harsher prison sentences, more police in their communities while not addressing the underlying conditions in our community. So these are larger issues than just the county jail. Technical parole violations are something that are a main driver of incarceration in the county jails. And this is a problem I believe that starts with changing the mentality of parole officers. If you look at studies all over the country, many localities have reduced parole violations for technical violations, but I think that the place that we need to start is correcting and changing the values of parole officers and probation as well. All too often probation is a pathway to incarceration and not a pathway off of incarceration. Probation officers do not look at themselves as social workers. As a matter of fact, they tell people on probation, yo, my job is not to get you a job. My job is to make sure you do not violate the terms of your probation. So we need complete wraparound services and a change of mentality in Philadelphia's probation system, and that is something that the City of Philadelphia can address. It doesn't have to wait for Harrisburg to address it, but it's going to take a commitment. So as I said, over 200 people are coming into the county jail every month on technical probation violations. Now, mind you, these are violations like missing an appointment, failing to pay fines, traveling out the city.

In some cases it can involve dirty urine or misdemeanor offenses. These are burdensome conditions. They disproportionately impact low-income individuals and communities of color and many people lack the resources to comply with the rigid conditions of supervision, which leads many of them to abscond, to roll, to get out dodge because of fear of incarceration. Like I'll be honest with you, if you know that you're going to be violated for missing an appointment or something simple and you're going to be violated and placed in Philadelphia's county jails where our county jails have been the most dangerous county jails in the country since 2020, 9 times out of 10 dudes are going to roll. I take my chances on the street than going in that environment, and that's a reality. This in turn fuels further entanglement with the system getting caught up in these technical violations. According to the City's prison reports, most recent of 2024 there were more than 200 people each month incarcerated simply for technical violations. This shouldn't happen. So Philadelphia needs to take the lead from jurisdictions that have successfully reformed probation and parole. Camden does not immediately jail individuals for technical violations. Instead they receive a letter informing them of the court date. Now, I know folks are like we're going to send a letter to someone that's on probation. We do that for traffic violations. We did it for running a red light in Philadelphia. You get a letter in the mail. If you if you fail to pay those, you get a letter in the mail. We can do these for people on probation. We could also call them. We can also text them specifically for the technical violations that I'm talking about, the low-level violations that again are not new charges. This is one way that we could stop the intake, stop the flow of people going into the county jail. If Pennsylvania also passed Act 44 that was intended to reform probation, but unfortunately it doesn't address the front-end issues of people coming into the system. And so, this is what I was talking about earlier, that Philadelphia can take the lead in changing the values and mentality of its probation officers and its probation system. Another area is releasing older and medically- vulnerable individuals. I feel like this is really a no-brainer as someone who did 28 years in prison. People who are older and medically vulnerable, they're released -- when you release them, they have the lowest recidivism rates of people coming back to prison, right. I tell people all the time crime is a young man's game, right, a young woman's game too as well. So these populations in the county jail can be released. Now, some people say, okay, people are suffering from medical conditions, where are they going to go, where are we going to release them. Well, again this is an issue that's unfortunately larger than the prison system because we have a health care problem in this country, right. We have a mass incarceration. We also have a mass health care problem in this country, right. Council sometimes does not have to try and figure it all out. There are resources out there in the community to help people who are suffering from medical conditions, and again increasing and improving the City's wraparound services will aid this population. So we feel as though starting with this population, people who are suffering from medical conditions, chronic illnesses and are seniors, they should be prioritized for release. And this is something that the City can do. They could be confined to home confinement, and probation officers or even the correctional facilities can call and check in on them. The racial justice issue, I know right now in this political climate we don't want to talk about racial justice no more, right. It almost seems like DEI, talking about how the system disproportionately impacts Black, Brown poor people. That doesn't happen like that, we're in some fairy tale land right now in America.

But unfortunately, it happens in Philadelphia. And I appreciate that the City Council and the elected officials are clear. Krasner released a report on racial justice around the system and I was just at a City Council hearing during Black History Month where the City defended its diversity policies as well as acknowledge the historical legacy of racism, not just in Philadelphia but in this country. When we talk about decarceration, we cannot -- or sorry, mass incarceration, we have to talk about the racial disparities baked in our system. Black Philadelphians make up 38% of the prison population but account for 71% of the jail population. They also endure the longest average length of incarceration. Black people are held an average of 249 days, 98 days longer than their White counterparts. And those studies are similar for Brown folks to people as well, Latino community. Although, Councilmember Lozada, I'm sure you're aware that the statistics in Latino communities are sometimes hard to sparse just because of the racial demographics of that group. 9 out of 10 people in Philadelphia jails are people of color. Studies show Black defendants are 40% more likely to be detained pretrial than non-Black defendants. The vast majority of those in our county jails are there because we criminalize poverty, homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse. I can tell you that I see more people that I saw inside suffering from mental health abuse living on the subway, living in the subway stations or in the regional rail stations than getting support, right. So criminalizing this group, one, is morally wrong but also you're not addressing the underlining issues. You are dealing with the symptoms and not the disease, because I could assure you that the Department of Correction is sending many, many more, thousands more, the DOC releases close to 20,000 people a year. And a report found that three-fourths of them are suffering from mental health disabilities on the spectrum, so it could go from someone who just was in long-term solitary confinement and has mental health disabilities to someone that is in need of medication, right. So they're coming back to our communities. And if we don't have anything for them but handcuffs, then we're just perpetuating the trauma. And concluding, this hearing is about decarceration. It's more importantly about the thousands of Philadelphians who remain behind bars due to outdated, unjust and ineffective policies. We have the opportunity right now to enact meaningful reforms that will break the cycle of incarceration and wasteful and unjust practices that keep our jails full and move toward a justice system that prioritized rehabilitation over punishment. We know what works. We have seen model success in other jurisdictions. One thing I want to say too is I heard everyone, and even including myself, acknowledge that we have a tough job ahead of us, acknowledge these problems but that we really don't have all the answers, right, and there's nothing wrong with that. We get to those answers by collectively working with each other, right. But there's something that we also need to acknowledge. And that it means that we need a commitment to this. We need a commitment from City Council. And I'm going to be honest with you. We need City Council to have the same commitment and energy that it had dealing with that stadium. We need to see that. That's what we need to see from y'all. We need to see a commitment to addressing this issue. It's a serious issue. It impacts and weaves in and out o the families of every person in this city. Even people who have never been arrested, I can assure you have someone in your family that was impacted by the system. And more importantly, when you step out your house every day if you move around the city of Philadelphia, you're moving around people who are impacted by this unjust system. So that's what we need and that's something I think that we all need to agree on.

If we don't have the all the answers, we need to agree that we need a massive commitment from City Council. So thank you for giving me this opportunity to testify.

Thank you for your testimony. Please state your name and begin your testimony.

Good afternoon. My name is Sue Meng Ye. I'm the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. I was asked to be available for questions. I'm one of the Council on the class action lawsuit Remick v. Philadelphia, which is the class action seeking humane conditions in the Philadelphia jails that started in 2020 that has been referenced earlier today. So I have submitted written testimony for the record. And I will note it was alluded that the court monitor shall be issuing another report. I actually don't know if it will be March 31st. But when it does come out, I want to note that it's publicly available through the court system, but we always post it on our website. That's pilp.org. So the monitor's report is often quite lengthy. The last one was 85 pages. So we do a four- or fivepage summary that hits the key points. And I just want to acknowledge our co-counsel on the case Abolitionist Law Center, Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg and Lin and Deckart. So I am available for any questions.

So my LA Ms. Stack is thanking you for providing that written testimony and abbreviated comment. I do have a question. The money that was a part of that court case where is it, how is it being appropriately spent?

So in August 2024 the court ordered that $25 million as you likely know be paid into a fund that is to be used to address a number of things. So the court order ordered the City of Philadelphia to put $25 million, which the number comes from funds that were not expended due to understaffing, that's how he calculated needed it. And then in that court order, he listed a number of things that the money should be used towards. So in my written testimony I highlight a few of them. The actual court order is also on our website. But for example, offering double time pay as necessary, hiring an outside recruitment team with proven track records for hiring law enforcement agencies, and I think Commissioner Resnick actually mentioned a few of these in his testimony, creating access to a care team for access to medical care, utilizing telehealth services even if it costs more. So there are a number of things here that the court put that the money should be expended towards. So I believe a number of things may be used. For example, the increase in funding and monies going towards the medical care services, that's also listed in the court order. I don't actually have an exact accounting of what's been spent or not. But I do know that the court through the court monitor has been in touch with the prison system regarding the use of the funds.

My suggestion to my colleague who authored this resolution is to get an exact accounting of where those dollars are being spent. And if we can do a better job when we start hearing from the people testifying today about wraparound services, about warm handoffs and things like that that you stated are the categories which it can be applied. So, Member Lozada.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say for the record, right, I'm fighting like hell to make sure that the issues in my District are responded to so that we don't have a future population of people going into our systems, right, the prison system, the mental health system. So I'm saying to this panel that when I put in my priority request where I have the Defender's request the expectation is that it's supported, right, because we hear from her all of the work that they're doing. We hear from her the work that others are doing in order to either prevent people from getting into our systems or supporting people that are in our systems that come out of our prison system and don't have the necessary resources to be able to be successful, right. And so, the work that we have to do in the Kensington community is extremely important because they are the future. If we don't respond to them now, they are the future people that will become the defenders, clients, right. And so, we need all hands on deck, right. I'm not going to stop advocating for my community to receive all of these important services, and I'm also fighting to make sure that my office partners with people who can provide those services to people who are coming out of our system because I know it's important. And so, the 15 million that the Defender is asking for is going to help both of these groups of people. And so, I ask this panel to seriously consider my priority request for the Defender's Association to make sure, right, that all of these essential services are delivered to both populations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Chief Defender Hudson keeps a stoic look about her, but she's jumping inside saying yay. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: You can't see my feet under the table.

That was a plug for you. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Thank you very much, Councilmember, for your support and thank you all for your support.

Member Loz -- Member Landau.

Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for your testimony, super important as well and as we keep hearing resounding themes with all of you for how we need to do things differently. What we've been doing has not worked. And I'm a big fan of now being in this position of let's just rip up the playbook and start over and start envisioning a new way of doing things. I'm kind of curious -- I'm sorry that I had to miss the testimony of the Prison Commissioner before I got here. But I'm curious if we started to promote the vacant positions in the prisons more in a sense of social work, helping, let's fight recidivism way versus just a criminal justice, prison justice way, if that could help fill the vacant positions and have people charged with the mandate of what we're looking for, which is to provide the services in the prison, to make people certainly following a court order mandate and to certainly make the conditions as humane as possible and get people out as quickly as possible and let's get them right back into society. (Applause.)

With all due respect, I think that would be a bait-and-switch scheme the City is running to the people that are coming in. Because as soon as they get into the Philadelphia county jail, they are going to see the conditions that they're subjected to and the City has not yet put a program in place that covers all these wraparound services. So they basically are coming in to do three things, care, custody and control, right. So I see where you're going with it. And if we had these systems in place that was actually treating incarceration for social workers, right, and dealing with the trauma, the therapy and all that comes with it, I think that would be approached. But you sell that to someone and they come into Philadelphia county jail and people are locked down hours a day, 8 they're getting food pushed to 9 their cells, they're seeing the 10 reports that older prisoners are 11 getting killed and people are dying 12 from drug overdoses, they're 13 understaffed, they're going to be 14 like, man, I'm out -- actually, 15 they're going to do what people are 16 doing already, why there's a 45% 17 rate. And I think that someone 18 even said that the retention rate 19 for new people is very low. I 20 don't have that off the top of my head, but I could give it to y'all. But they're going to roll. They're going to leave. So if the City makes a commitment to address the prisons from a health and safety issue, then that could be pitched. But if you pitch it, right, with the conditions that we have and the commitment of the City, it's going to be like that old saying, you know -- well, I'm not going to say it, but it's putting sugar on, you know, you know what I mean. So we're going to have to change our mentality of how we view the prisons. It's like a probation officer who would come in thinking that they're going to do social work, and the first thing that they told us, yo, it ain't your responsibility to find them a job. It's not your responsibility to find them substance abuse treatment. You give them this paper right here that has the phone numbers for them to call. They do it. Your job is to make sure they don't violate the terms of the probation, that you make sure that they're checking in. And if they violate it, then you make sure that there's consequences and they go back. So that's our problem and that's what I talked about earlier. We need a complete overhaul of the values and the mentality that's driving our carceral system in Philadelphia. (Applause.)

Are you done?

Yes.

Chair recognizes Member O'Rourke.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just want to thank you all for being here and the work that you do on behalf of our city's most vulnerable. The folks have been on the wall for some time and I appreciate your leadership and the bright spot that you are in our city. To Defender Hudson, I know work has been done, even very recently, to improve FIR, Forensic Intensive Recovery program. As we all know, substance abuse and mental health treatment slots are critical in your testimony here. Are there any subsections of the population you see having particular barriers to treatment? CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Yes. I want to underscore again that we are -- the Philadelphia prisons, we are sending people there who come in with very, very, very complex drug and substance abuse and mental health issues that the prisons are going to have a challenge and have had challenges addressing and cannot address. And our clients are there for short stays and they're going to come back to communities without those really important connections to medication, to treatment, to housing and services. I think -- I agree. If you remember last year, I made a bold statement during my City Council testimony about the number of people I think the Defender Association and then the prison we can safely release to close the Detention Center. I still hold that belief. I still think that we need to look at the vulnerable populations there, including the people who are older. Having done this work for years, I will tell 21 you as someone who represented 22 clients on death row for 10 of 23 those years where my clients were in their 50s and 60s and 70s, people age out. The population is not going to be a threat to public safety and they can safely come home. I know the narrative in the media when you see charges, people rarely see the person behind those charges. And so, when you read a headline and you see rape or you read a headline and you see carjacking, armed carjacking, those are alarming and they're concerning and we should be alarmed and we should be concerned. But Defenders work with the people behind those headlines and those charges and these are individuals who Netflix cannot write the script for how they got to where they got, right. They don't have any writers in their Netflix writing room to write these scripts for our clients. They're human beings and they're a multigeneration of poverty and trauma and criminal justice system involvement and dependency involvement and driven alcohol system involvement. And there's a reason they're here. But they're more than a file and they're more than the charge, they're more than that headline which reads like it's terrifying, but we know who they are. And I've not in years met a single one 12 not worthy of redemption and mercy, 13 whether it's in or out of our 14 carceral system. 15

16 Not a single one -- 17 CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: 18 Not a single one. 19

-- 20 in two decades not worthy of mercy. 21 The people say amen. 22 Ms. Ye, did I say your 23 last name correctly?

Yes.

I apolo -- thank you very much. As co-counsel for the plaintiffs, what trends are you seeing, what is your assessment of the state of overall compliance with the settlement in contempt of order?

So your question about the state of compliance, I will note that since 2020 there have been dire conditions in the Philadelphia jails. The settlement was reached in 2022 where we have been receiving regular reports from the court monitor, and all of them have had major issues with compliance. There have been slight improvements, I want to acknowledge that. But as an overall matter, the last report of October 2024 still reflected serious issues of noncompliance. And I want to highlight just a few you can look at, which is specifically out-of- cell time, but especially for people in segregation and behavioral health services and mental services for people in segregation. So in particular, people who were visibly decompensating, people who had very serious issues of swallowing sharp or toxic items, which clearly shows that there are issues. So it's many years and I don't think that with the efforts that are being made, things will turn overnight. And just from my perspective, we haven't yet received the data about the last few months. The reports are a little behind. But I'll just say that from our clients' perspectives, and this is anecdotal, I'll admit things have not dramatically improved. I look forward to seeing the data, but I do really look forward to the day and I hope we can get there but we're not there yet, when people who walk through our door say, hey, things are better. And so, I think there needs to be continued attention. I really appreciate this hearing regarding the conditions of the Philadelphia jails.

And thank you for that. And a lot has been said today. It is certainly a shared desire to see the day where all of us, and I'm sure all the folks who have been a part of the panels would agree, that we can get to a point where we're saying things are better there. Amen on that front. I have no more questions for this one, Mr. Chairman. But I will just say I do know that the hour is drawing later and this is getting longer than folks may have planned for. After this, we will as it relates to public testimony for folks who have come, I'm certain that we're losing folks, we will have, if we are unable to get through folks' public testimony, space open in the caucus room where we will hear the remainder of the testimonies for those folks that have come. We thank you so much for being here. Obviously, your voices matter. That's what democracy looks like, when you can come into the space, give your testimony, it can be heard and perhaps acted on. So I want to make sure that we allow the time for that. I do know that this hearing is abutting up against another one afterwards, so we again have reserved the Caucus room across the hall in the event that we're unable to get through all the public testimony, but we will continue to hear those after this hearing has adjourned. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Member. With that -- we're good? All right. Thank you for your testimony. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

Ms. Hudson, you are consistent if nothing else. CHIEF DEFENDER HUDSON: Yes, I am. Thank you, Councilman.

All right. Ms. Stack.

Jody Dodd from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, Reverend Dr. Donna L. Jones from the Metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia and Restorative Cities Initiative. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

So I'm going to ask this panel, recognizing the time it is not your fault, it is mine, but we need to summarize your testimony in order to comply with the next hearing that is scheduled in this chamber. And for those who are here for public testimony as Member O'Rourke has stated, will be across the hall. Thank you and please state your name for the record and begin your abbreviated testimony.

Hi. Good morning. My name is Jody Dodd. I'm the Restorative Justice Facilitator at the District Attorney's Office. I'm going to summarize this. I had so much more to say but time got away. I'm going summarize this real quickly. We've been running restorative justice diversion for three years since 2021. Here's the thing you need to know: People that go into the criminal system, the recidivism rate is 61%. People that go through restorative justice it's 26% and that's without the wraparound supports. As importantly, the juvenile program that we've had up and running for three years, some of the facilitators are here, zero, zero youth have gone through restorative justice have been adjudicated delinquent subsequently versus 61% of juveniles that go through the criminal system. I'm going to just say I'm just the facilitator. You need to know the people doing this work that are in our community and you need to fund their work. Thank you. (Applause.)

Right to the point. All right. Thank you for your testimony. And we would like to get a copy of that that you have on there. Thank you. Could you give it to the Clerk?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. REV.

Thank you, Jody. So my name is Reverend Dr. Donna Jones. Good to see you, Councilman Jones --

Always a pleasure. REV.

-- Councilman O'Rourke, I can't see that far, but our other sister Council -- Councilperson, thank you, Rue Landau. Thank you. Thank you for having this hearing. It's very important. I'm the Executive Director of Metropolitan Christian Council and I also collaborated on this response with one of our colleagues from Collective Climate, Kayla Warwick, and I just want to lift that up. Both of us have provided within our communities, restorative justice services that were referred to us through the District Attorney's Office, but we also do this work in general in the community. We operate with transformative justice. And transformative justice is a political approach that aims to address violence and harm by building community support and accountability rather than relying on punishment. It's a way of creating justice together and it can be thought of as restorative justice plus social justice. I want to say that because transformative justice means we are not under contract with the District Attorney's Office. When I say we receive referrals, I'm saying as the community our District Attorney through the wonderful work that is done by people like Jody Dodd, they refer cases to us in collaboration, not in (inaudible). We're the community that walks beside our District Attorney's Office. We're the community that walks beside the Defender's Association. We're the community that walks beside individual attorneys like, I think he's still here, Troy Wilson. So we are community. We are not an agency. And as community, what we're doing is restorative practitioners throughout Philadelphia collaborating together across nonprofits. Collective Climate is one of them. There are other nonprofits in this room, Every Murder is Real, other nonprofits. We also collaborate with community members. Yes, regular Philadelphians who are equal partners in providing restorative healing circles and resolutions of conflicts and things like that in the neighborhood. Our goal is to cover our city. Right now to do the funding of my organization, MCCP, that's an independent nonprofit, we funded the first three years of the Restorative Cities Initiative and we did that out of pocket. Okay. We're a Black-led philanthropy investing in our own community. So when our philanthropy was engaged with training with people in this room, the DA's Office and many of our nonprofits, we pulled together a collaborative and we funded it ourselves because we weren't able to get funding because we didn't have a track record. Now, we have a track record. Hallelujah. But we don't want the funding. We want everybody else to get the funding. The goal is that our restorative justice practitioners in our city of which there are over 100, over 140 we trained. And we're collaborating together through the Wisdom Circle, through all the means we can to provide that safety net. What MCCP doing is we're putting together a structure for that work. We're forming a social service co-op so that work can continue fueled by the community itself in partnership with the School District, the District Attorney, DHS, whoever wants us, but we've got the infrastructure in place. So our foundation funded the first three years of the infrastructure. Guess what? We don't have no more money. Okay. We funded the first three years of an infrastructure to contribute greatly to this recidivism rate. Guess what? We don't have no more money. Guess who needs -- Metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia. Oh, our budget was -- don't go by our budget because we were underpaying our facilitators. So I don't want to say our budget because we really didn't have a budget. Some people in this room are some of our facilitators.

If I had time, I would have told you restorative justice is about $8,000 a year per person that goes through that process, and that's soup to nuts. And that's looking at how much our office invests, the PD's office might invest and also the restorative justice practitioners. REV.

Yeah. And from a standpoint of worker justice, that's why we're doing the cooperative because we were only able to put out 250 per person to adjudicate or whatever we were doing to -- Jody has the language for that, 338 cases that were referred to us from the DA. And these were felony cases, things from carjacking, things like burglary and we have continued to have the recidivism rates that we're talking about. And this is community-driven. This is not driven with a whole lot of extra support. So imagine what these numbers would look like if we had the ability to fund the nonprofits that do this work. Lastly, I've revised my written response while sending the revision of the written response, but I want to at least share a personal story. I am a mother, I am a wife, and I am a pastor. And I have raised four children, three Black boys who are now Black men. And I've been false -- my husband and I have been resource parents for one, two, three, four, five -- five young Black teenagers. And of that number of my sons that were raised from the wound until this day, one of them was impacted by incarceration. Of the young men that came to live with us for Black young men, one is deceased, not by gun violence, hallelujah, but one is deceased and one was incarcerated. I know as a parent, I know as someone who raised children that restorative -- there's a personal cost analysis that has been done that no one's mentioned yet. My brother from NOMO mentioned the $50,000 per inmate, but another organization did a cost analysis for families in Pennsylvania, a cost analysis and a survey with inmates. And the inmates reported that maintaining close family connections while incarcerated lowers the likelihood of recidivism, that in families goes into debt paying for phone calls and visits to jail. Women of color are most likely to be responsible for incarceration and court-related costs. I'm a witness. We had to come out of our pocket for bail so that those young men didn't have to be waiting for a year or more incarcerated, both my son and our foster son. So the median weekly transportation costs to visit in Pennsylvania, that might not be related directly to State Road so much, but the median weekly cost is $45 a week, necessary food, hygiene and other personal products have $1 surcharge at the prison commentary. 96% of the survey respondents reported relying on loved ones to financially support them while incarcerated. I'm a witness. 71% of those surveyed reported weekly prison costs of over $50,000 a week. And 84% of the respondents say there were times they couldn't afford to even call home. The survey participants that participated most of them, their income was less than $24,000 a year, but they were contributing. My own son almost lost his wife after three months of incarceration. And my other foster son, my foster son, he was incarcerated for six months, but the probation period caused him to be incarcerated for months because of stupid probation violations that had nothing to do with his offense. It had to do with other stuff. And then he was sent up to Upstate Pennsylvania. So there's a financial burden. And when we look at the respondents, yes, restorative justice often reports much higher victim satisfaction rates compared to retributive justice. The studies show that a majority of victims feel positive about their experience with restorative practitioners and recidivism rates. Research suggests that restorative justice programs can lead to a significant decrease in recidivism rates compared to traditional punitive approaches. Offender perception, studies indicate that offenders often receive restorative justice programs as fairer and more satisfying than traditional criminal justice systems.

And there's a lot of statistics, but basically 85% of participating people who've been harmed -- I don't like the term victims, but I was reading someone else's data -- 85% of people who have received restorative justice support have reported satisfaction, that's people who've been harmed. We've talked a lot about the person in jail, but I'm talking about the people who've been harmed. Lastly, we just finished a very high profile situation where the persons were already incarcerated for life as juveniles for terrible, terrible murders and they were average age 16, 17. And we had the opportunity to go inside at the County. We had the opportunity to meet with them and meet with both mothers, mothers of the person who was murdered and mothers of the people who were incarcerated and to allow a human process for folks to be able to talk about the simple question, to hear a mother of a person incarcerated and a mother of a person whose child was murdered both answer the same question, what in the world were you thinking when you did this. And to be in a room 17 with these young meant it was transformative. So this work is work that keeps people out. Organizations like NOMO, I really appreciate what Brother Williams said. We got to do the work on the inside. I agree that we have to tear -- I don't want to say tear down in our current political environment because that's not what we're talking about. But it's time to transform, and that's the work of transformative justice. We want to transform. And there are community partners out there that are championing, some of the folk that you have heard that are organizing as community organizers that we learned as part of POWER, I just needed to say that and part of Live Free so that all of us together -- because that's the principles of transformative justice. All of us together create the change that we know our community deserves. We know that we can do better the. Thank you. )

Wow.

You saved the best for last.

You are -- you must have been listening to us talk about the conversation sidebar, that one of the things we can never forget are those harmed by crime, not victims, but harmed by crime. And you gave me a flashback in a testimony where I was in a courtroom. It was a homicide case and the accused family was on one side of court, the victim's family was on the other. And that judge said something that was tattooed on my heart and profound. He said, there's only victims here, that everybody here is a victim of this, and that, you know. When he said that, I looked, we have to do something different, we have to do something better. We have to do something to change this paradigm. And I really appreciate you bringing up those who have been harmed. Appreciate it. Are there any questions? Member O'Rourke.

It's incredibly inspiring to hear the promise of and the proof supporting the expansion of restorative and transformational justice practices. Thank you both, Ms. Dodd and Dr. Jones, for the work that you do around these matters. Dr. Jones, can you just put on the record what level of funding would be required to substantially increase the use of restorative and transformative justice -- REV.

Over $4 million a year.

Say it one more time. REV.

Over $4 million, roughly $4 million a year.

So what we need in order to expand that and get it to be effective is a little bit north of $4 million per year -- REV.

Yes.

Not $8,000 per person per year, right? REV.

Yes.

Thank you very, very -- REV.

And the funds is not -- they go to the people who are doing the work.

Gotcha. REV.

So remember who we're talking about.

Absolutely. All right. Thank you very much.

Any other questions -- okay. Oh, we've been here a while. I want to thank you so much for your testimony and for those who had the patience to wait through this. But we were getting so much good feedback, so much good information that my colleagues have committed to entering into the discussion over budget so that this hearing will be a continuation of seeking those answers to the questions posed today. So thank you for your testimony. REV.

You're welcome. I just need to make a correction. That number of 4 is directly related to the work that we've been doing specifically with the District Attorney's Office. There's restorative justice work being done in our School District, being done in our health care systems, Temple University, University of Pennsylvania. So if City Council is considering the network of restorative work that is being done in the city. I recommend you do a study of the costs. And I know the costs are going to be better than what they are without restorative justice.

Thank you. Thank you again. We will now proceed to go next door to talk to anyone who wants to talk to us in public comment. This concludes the business of the Joint Committee --

(Inaudible).

(Inaudible).

All right. Let's start. We're going to ask those who are interested in public comment -- was there a list, Ms. Stack?

Yes.

Can you call the list.

If everyone could just raise their hand if they're still in the room. I have Nigel Bowe, Kate Mackey, LaTrista Webb and Chris Snyder, if those four can approach.

Are they here? Two, okay. Come on up. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

(Inaudible).

So this will conclude the official part of this hearing of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Legislative Oversight because our stenographer needs a break. So we will listen to the testimony right here. We'll start here. Thank you. Thank you all for your participation. And you can continue. We might as well sit right where we are. State your name now.

Good afternoon. My name is Nigel Bowe. I'm the Vice-president of Diversion and Re-entry Services for JEVS Human Services. Thank you, Councilmember O'Rourke and all the members of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Legislative Oversight, for the opportunity to speak today. Our diversion program at JEVS Human Services offers a research-proven alternative to incarceration. We've been hearing about it all day. The program is called The Choice is Yours, also known as TCY. For more than 10 years we've been working in partnership with municipal courts, judges, the District Attorney's Office and the Defender's Association to divert first-time felony drug offenders from prison. Individuals graduating from this program are also eligible to have their cases expunged if they go one year without a new arrest or conviction, and this is how we have directly impacted on reducing the prison population in the city. We divert individuals from incarceration and then we help connect them to career pathways, high-quality employment training and the support they need to sustain a job, which again we've been hearing about all morning. For those who do not graduate from high school, we also offer the opportunity to earn a high school diploma, not a GED. Last year our diversion program supported more than 150 individuals. With more support, we could help more individuals which why we want to expand this program to other types of offenses. This would open the door for us to dramatically impact the number of individuals going into prison. We recently submitted a proposal to PCCD that would support expanding this program to individuals with firearm-related offenses. I'm happy to say that we were awarded that grant and we will start the program asap. Last year just 11% of our individuals who participated in our program were re-arrested compared to the national recidivism rate of 60% or 61%. Our programs work and it saves the City money. It costs about $5,000 per year per participant for our diversion program. According to Vera Institute, the average cost to incarcerate an individual in Philadelphia is around $40,000, could be a little more. Finally, reducing the current prison population requires addressing the barriers to successful re-entry, which we've heard a lot about this morning as well. For successful re-entry, it's vital that individuals have a strong support system in place. Our re-entry program is part of this support providing critical services to overcome barriers to re-entry, such as stable housing, employment, education and training. We currently run a program called Get Ready, Get Set, Get Out at CFCF. It is through the Second Chance Act. It's a federally-funded program. We serve individuals that are between 80 to 180 days of being released that have been identified as medium risk of recidivating, that have had medium offenses and charges. We provide post- and prerelease services so individuals that are released are able to come to our program and choose from four tracks, employment, apprenticeship, credentialing and academic upsell, both our re-entry and diversion programs work to reduce the prison population and with greater support, as mentioned earlier, there's an opportunity for us to do more. So I want to thank you for an opportunity to speak today on behalf of the items on your agenda but also on behalf on behalf of JEVS Human Services.

So thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Please state your name and begin your testimony. We will conclude after these two because we have to -- yeah, we have to go across.

Okay. Hi, Councilman Jones. Hi, everybody. My name is LaTrista Webb. I am the founder and Executive Director of the Elevation Project. We are a re-entry program housed in the 4th District, but we serve all of Philadelphia. I heard a lot of people say a lot of things, but I'm going to wake everybody up and I'm going to start with this. 60% to 65% is the recidivism rate for Philadelphia prisons and state prison system in Pennsylvania. They all both fall between 60% and 67%. The Elevation Project has a 4% recidivism rate. I heard somebody say we couldn't give numbers. I make sure that we track our data. We track our people from the moment they leave our program. We started tracking data in 2022. We've been around since 2015. The data collection didn't become really important to me until 2022. So from 2022 until date, we have a 4% recidivism rate. We serve about 100 people a year. We run a transformative business center where men can come to start and maintain their own business. We take men coming home from state prison as well as State Road. What sets us apart and what I think sets apart every organization that's here, what sets us apart from the DA's Office, the Defender's Association and the prison is that I think all of our programs build relationship. And so, we can talk about closing prisons and we can talk about all this work that we want to do, but if you don't have the ability to build relationships with men and women who are coming home, it's impossible to help them. I heard my brother Dawan talk about giving them a check. But if you still haven't built relationships, most people will wind up down at Sugar House or whatever it's called now and the check will be gone. They will find a way to get it off of that debit card that Councilmember Phillips spoke about. So I'm not saying that you shouldn't put money in the hands of the people, but if you don't connect them to organizations like the Elevation Project that are able to build relationships with people that help them to stay home. Because we talk a lot about keeping people home, but we don't know what it requires for a person to stay home. I am not justice impacted. I've never been to prison. I've never been to jail, never been in handcuffs. Knock on wood I may get out of here. Okay. But my partner has been, right. And so, I think that's what sets us apart from other programs, is that we have that real-life experience. In January -- and I'll end with this. January 18, 2025 we had the opportunity to host the biggest event that the Elevation Project has ever had at Overbrook High School. We had over 800 people there, over 250 people meet with a lawyer. And when that event was over, a week later, a week later, a parole agent decided that he was going to violate my partner who had done everything in his power to help the community because of me, and he missed the date to meet with his agent and the agent violated him and they put him on a house arrest bracelet for 30 days after he had served the community. I'm real-life experience that it took everything, I begged him, please just go down there. He said, it's a warrant out for my arrest, you're telling me to go and turn myself in to go to State Road. And I said, I promise you won't go to jail. He said, Trista, you don't know that I'm not going to go to jail. I said, I promise you won't go to jail. But in the back of my mind I really didn't know. But I knew that if he went on the run, life was going to be real hard when you're a public figure and everybody knows where to find you. So he went, he went on house arrest. But those are the issues that people face in the system. And if you don't have a relationship with the organization that can say, it's okay. I tell all my clients, I'm their privilege. Maybe you can't go speak at Council meetings, maybe you can't call Councilmembers, maybe you can't call the Chief Defender, but I can. I'm your access. I'm your privilege, and that's the relationships that organizations build.

And that's how the City has a 60% recidivism rate and I have a 4% one because my people can call my phone and I answer. Thank you for your time. )

So I want to thank -- before you go, I want to thank JEVS. I've been down to South Philly to see what that program meant to the participants. And it is the real deal. They were given skills. They were working on construction skills to be able to have a real life after probation and parole. To you, colleagues, I have yet to see another program -- no disrespect to anybody else -- better than that. She mentioned Overbrook which is my alma mater. I was there and they were servicing people. But before that, you were in the park on Parkside Avenue during the summer months and there were 300 people. Every time they have a block party -- even before that on Noble Street, every time they have this event, it is 300 people and they can't get to the 301st person because there's not enough lawyers to actually process some of the papers that they had. And these are people that came up to me and I'm like, well, why are you here, are you here for the burger? No, I'm here for the expungement. And I'm like, you know what I mean. And these are pastors, these are neighbors, these are my cousins that I'm like, why are you here. And you didn't know that about them. So when I tell you that there are diamonds out there, it's acres of diamonds, if you would. This is one of them. That's another one. But I've seen an up, close, touch and knew the people that they were helping. And I want you to keep up doing the good work. You don't know this, but I put you in as my budget priority. And I'm hoping that it will be your budget priority. And thank you. Thank you for what you and your partner do. Is he okay?

He's okay. They took it off yesterday on his birthday.

I met him as well. They are genuine people and I vouch for them.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Member Harrity, just in time to say goodbye. All right. Thank you all. Thank you for your patience. We'll be across the hall. (Joint Committees on Public Safety and Legislative Oversight concluded at 1:28 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL