Locks Don’t Work At Delco Prison And Inmates Are Making Shivs — Delaware County Council, last night, Feb. 7, faced a contingent of correction officers from George Hill Prison who told them the locks on the cell doors don’t work and the prisoners are tasked with fixing them.
Which they don’t seem to be doing albeit they are making shivs from the materials they are given as per Officer Al Johnson of Morton.
Johnson, a 14-year veteran, said he has never seen it this bad. He blistered Councilman Kevin M. Madden who is on the county’s prison oversight board and has made comments to the media that conditions there were peachy.
He said suicides have increased as have assaults on staff and other prisoners
He said sexual abuse is heaped on the staff by the prisoners and the complaints are ignored by Warden Laura Williams.
Frank Kwaning, president of the Delaware County (Pa) Prison Employees Independent Union, reinforced Johnson. He also said Madden’s claims that everything was fine were false.
He said the facility is not safe for officers. When the staff makes complaints the warden retaliates against them.
He said he wants council to visit the prison and meet with staff without administrators present
Harriet Burgess of Drexel Hill said she was one of the victims of retaliation.
She had been a sergeant at the prison and was fired because she wouldn’t falsify documents, she said.
Ms. Burgess blasted Madden saying he was unfit to serve on either the oversight board or council. She also Warden Williams was not fit to serve, and that officers fear entering the cell blocks because the doors are not fixed.
She said there are thousands of OSHA violations at the prison.
When it came time for council comments, Elaine Paul Schaefer blithely thanked the correction officers for coming in but said they were wrong about conditions at the facility.
She said she knew because she used “data points”.
She then talked about the county trail system and how wonderful it was.
Madden, who was attending virtually, attempted to defend himself.
He accused Kwaning of making the claims as a union bargaining ploy. He said the prison wouldn’t let him tour without senior staff present.
One of the speakers claimed that Delco hired Warden Williams despite her being fired from Allegheny County Prison.
Madden defended her saying she had not been fired.
Whether she was fired or not it’s safe to say Allegheny County was not sorry to see her go.
Madden said the prison is much improved since the county took over from GEO Group on April 6, 2022 in response to some of the speakers pointedly saying otherwise.
The only councilmember that seemed to give a fig was Vice Chairman Richard R. Womack.
Womack said he was not going to take the correction officers at their word but that he will investigate. He said it was inexcusable for someone to be fired in retaliation for making a complaint. He said would visit the prison.
While he did not expect to be able to tour it without administration present, he would request that a union member accompany him, and that he would speak to the officers outside of the hearing of senior staff.
The officers in attendance gave him loud applause.
The growing crisis regarding the prison have been reported for more than year. The incompetence and indifference that led to the agonizing death of paraplegic inmate Mustafa Jackson did not get near the publicity it deserved.
Speakers say they expect a guard will eventually be killed.
For a story on the single moms and other parents who, last night, described abuse committed by the county’s Children and Youth Services visit here.
Locks Don’t Work At Delco Prison And Inmates Are Making Shivs