By Marcia Gelbart
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Holmesburg Prison, constructed in 1896, was infamous for its riots and for the medical experiments conducted on prisoners there after WWII. (AP photo) |
PENNYSLVANIA — To help relieve prison overcrowding, a senior Nutter administration official yesterday raised the prospect of housing hundreds more inmates at the former Holmesburg Prison in Northeast Philadelphia."We would not have to worry about lawsuits and triple-celling,” Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison, who oversees public safety issues, said during a City Council hearing about the prison department’s $250 million budget next year. He said while no immediate plans were in the works, the 110-year-old prison would be an ideal site to locate temporary facilities that could provide much-needed housing for about 600 inmates.The idea of erecting a temporary structure inside Holmesburg’s walls is not new. Both the Rendell and Street administrations explored the concept.
Leon King, prisons commissioner under Mayor John F. Street and a city lawyer during the Rendell years, said yesterday that the idea was ultimately rejected because of a lack of funds, the high cost of improving the physical plant at the prison and of bringing in utilities, and Council opposition.The city, with 9,440 inmates in its prison system, is just months away from reaching an average daily prison population of 10,000 with no more room left in its existing jails, Prison Commissioner Louis Giorla said.Closed in 1995, Holmesburg was known for riots that took place behind its 35-foot-high walls. It was replaced by the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.Gillison made his remarks in response to concern by City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, whose Northeast district includes the Holmesburg Prison. She said Gillison visited her Council office in January to discuss the idea of reopening it. “I gave you a list of reasons why I would oppose it,” Krajewski reminded him yesterday.She emphasized that residents in neighborhoods near the site would not support housing inmates there, especially given the location of a nearby charter school. But Gillison said there is a misconception: Holmesburg Prison has never really closed. According to Giorla, it currently houses about 100 male newly-admitted inmates for whom there is no space at Curran-Fromhold. Also, 115 female inmates are housed in a separate building, called the Cannery, which is outside the prison’s walls."We never really closed it,” Gillison said. Inmates have been housed on and off at the prison since the summer of 2006, when the gym was retrofitted with showers, sinks, toilets and bunk beds to house 80 male inmates awaiting trial.No one is housed inside the cell blocks of Holmesburg, prison officials said.The prison department budget is one of a very few areas in the city’s 2010 budget that is slated to increase next year, in this case by 2 percent. Most of the rising costs stem from overtime for correctional officers. The department also spends about $65 million a year on medical costs.Also discussed in yesterday’s hearing was using electronic bracelets to track released inmates, the creation of a mental health court, and a proposal to use video technology to eliminate the need for in-person court appearances by inmates."Although each of these initiatives has the potential to reduce the prisons’ average daily population, none has been fully implemented, so their expected success is cautionary at this point,” Giorla said. “With that in mind, the 10,000 figure is still a potential reality.”
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