Philadelphia prisons report a boost in staffing as Council considers new oversight board

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Philadelphia’s prison system has made progress on hiring after years of staffing shortages, a shift officials say is helping improve conditions for people in custody as City Council considers establishing a Prison Community Oversight Board.

The board would include four mayoral appointees, four City Council appointees and one appointee from the City Controller. Also, the board would be tasked with taking a deeper look at incarceration in the city.

During a Council Committee on Labor and Civil Service hearing on Monday, Department of Prisons Commissioner Michael Resnick said the department added hundreds of new correctional officers to its ranks in recent years, which will continue to improve conditions in the city’s correctional facilities.

He said since April 2024, PDP has hired 574 correctional officers — including 526 new cadets and 48 reinstated officers who left in good standing within the past five years — for a net gain of nearly 400 officers.

The newly hired corrections officers will give incarcerated people more time outside confinement. Not only does having more guards mean less time prisoners need to spend in their cells or dormitories, but it also means less overtime paid by the city when corrections officers are forced to work mandatory overtime to keep the facilities safe.

Resnick also told the committee his staff is working to improve prison conditions, including installing Tec84 body scanners. The equipment is designed to enhance safety and prevent contraband from being smuggled into the jails. He said they are finding even non-metallic items using the tool.

Resnick said for the first time, all inmates also have tablet computers on a one-to-one basis. The tablets provide “educational opportunities, as well as entertainment, and in addition [to] video visitation and phone calls.”

The city’s Detention Center has also been given air conditioning in the dorms, something Resnick said “most never thought could happen,” adding that the incarcerated population was quite pleased with the A/C dorms during last year’s hot summer.

He said the city is doing everything it can to “enhance the conditions for our incarcerated population.”

The hearing was not without criticism of the city’s corrections system.

Tom Innes, director of prison advocacy for the Defender Association of Philadelphia, said Resnick has done a lot, but it’s not perfect.

“Communication is better, responsiveness is better there are people working right now to change the culture inside the jail, but progress that depends on individuals is fragile,” Innes said.

He said there are still questions about the health and safety of those being held in prison, and having independent oversight will help keep the prisons on a track of improvement. He said it’s time to end a culture of secrecy and silence that has drastically eroded trust between the citizens and the justice system.

Noah Barth is the monitoring director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a nonprofit advocacy group that works to protect the rights of people in Pennsylvania’s prisons and jails. He told the committee that they are inside the prisons multiple times every week and that he has personally led 17 monitoring tours of the city jails, publishing reports of shortfalls.

“For 4 1/2 years, we have reported to this body and to your colleagues in Harrisburg on people kept in cells for days or even weeks at a time, housing units left unstaffed, physical and verbal abuse, denials of care, squalid and unsafe living conditions and a litany of other complaints. We have reminded you that the living conditions of the 3,500 people detained in our city’s prisons are the very same working conditions of the department’s board than 2,000 staff members,” he said.

Barth said there has been progress in some areas, including access to showers, laundry, phone calls and other basic services, but work still needs to be done.

The bill to create the committee moves on to the full Council for first reading and an eventual vote.