Held in contempt over jail conditions, Philly must pay $25M and quickly boost staffing, a judge has ordered

A federal judge has ordered the city of Philadelphia to pay $25 million into a dedicated fund and to take urgent action to address staffing shortages at the city’s jails.

The order, issued Friday, came a month after U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh found the city in contempt of its 2022 settlement agreement in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of incarcerated people over inhumane conditions at the jails.

McHugh ordered the city to rapidly ramp up staff recruiting and retention efforts, and offer double pay to fill vacant shifts, as the jails are about 45% below a full staffing complement. As a result of those shortages, incarcerated people have been frequently locked in their cells for days on end and contraband has flowed freely, leading to drug overdoses and serious injuries with homemade weapons.

» READ MORE: Drug deaths and overdoses plague Philly jails, where many are denied drug treatment

In addition, McHugh said the city must immediately explore moving some prisoners to facilities outside the city’s main jail complex in Northeast Philadelphia.

He also ordered criminal justice leaders to analyze whether low-risk, medically vulnerable prisoners could be released. A population reduction of some 500 prisoners would enable the city to close its oldest jail, the Detention Center, which would greatly ease the demands on staff, lawyers said at the contempt hearing in July.

Instead, the jail population in recent weeks has surged to its highest level in three years — around 4,800 people — stretching even further past staff capacity, and raising alarms among some city officials.

A string of violent incidents followed, according to internal records obtained by The Inquirer.

Correctional officers, woozy from the thick smoke from the synthetic drug K2 on some units, have gone out for medical treatment at least twice in the last three weeks, the reports show. And last week, at least four incarcerated people had to be taken to outside hospitals for medical care after being slashed or stabbed in fights.

Prisons Commissioner Michael Resnick, in a statement, said he was “disappointed in the finding of contempt” and noted that the situation at the jails “has developed over years.”

But, Resnick added, “We are hopeful that the measures Judge McHugh has ordered will provide the system with the tools needed to achieve compliance by removing barriers to our efforts to recruit, hire and retain staff in order to provide the inmate population with services on a consistent basis.”

» READ MORE: 29 people died in Philly jails in the pandemic. City officials said they did 'a good job.'

City lawyers emphasized in court that the administration has made significant good faith efforts to hire more staff, increase salaries, and outsource time-consuming tasks like transporting prisoners to medical appointments.

But, McHugh said, a contempt finding was warranted after the city failed for more than two years to come into compliance with the terms of its own settlement agreement.

He also ordered the city to set aside additional funds to pay its medical and maintenance contractors, to improve security, and to hire contractors to review its programming.

David Rudovsky, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, had argued that prisoners who had endured the “horrendous” and unconstitutional conditions should be directly compensated under the contempt order, at a rate of $5 per person per day of incarceration.

That would have cost the city about $8.3 million a year.

But the city’s lawyers said that was not equitable, or practicable.

McHugh’s order to set aside $25 million in city funds appears designed to ensure money is available for improvements to the prison system itself.

But, Rudovsky said, if the city doesn’t act, he’ll seek to have that money forfeited. He said the amount of money involved sends a clear signal.

“I think it shows [McHugh is] taking it very seriously and has tried to craft an order here that addresses what everybody agrees are the three main issues: increasing staff, reducing population, and bringing the facilities, whether it’s health care or maintenance, into constitutional compliance,” he said. “Whether the city is able to do it is the real question. But I think his message is, ‘If you don’t do it, there are going to be additional sanctions imposed.’”