DV Journal

(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

Hostilities between the rank-and-file correctional officers and the warden of Delaware County’s prison have become so tense that dozens of officers refused to attend a planned recognition and awards ceremony as well as an appreciation barbecue as a part of National Correctional Officer Week, according to two sources with intimate knowledge of the prison’s day-to-day workings.

Those two sources also described several disciplinary events in recent months that the rank-and-file officers have perceived as being unfair to the point of being retaliatory.

All these events taken together have led to a kind of “Cold War” in which cooperation, open communication, and trust between management and staff is almost nonexistent and morale continues to plummet.

The two sources who form the basis for this article are known to Broad + Liberty, but are not named in order to allow them to speak freely without concerns of career retaliation.

The county sent out a glowing press release on Friday publicizing its celebration of National Correctional Officer Week on the grounds of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility (GWHCF).

But the two sources say it was far from a happy experience. Both sources said the decision for correctional officers not to go was not organized by any single person, but more of a grassroots affair in which individuals were deciding on their own not to attend. Once a few officers realized others were not going to attend, the idea spread quickly.

One source estimated that if there were 150 correctional officers at work that day, 140 refused to attend. It should be emphasized that those figures are only estimations, and can’t be corroborated.

Warden Laura Williams was installed by the county in her role on Jan. 31, 2022, just weeks before the county was set to finalize the management takeover of the prison which had been privately run for almost three decades.

Prior to working at the GWHCF, Williams worked at the Allegheny County Prison, one of the most troubled and controversial prisons in the commonwealth.

In June of 2023, Williams’ former colleague from Allegheny, Adam Smith, also joined the GWHCF team as chief deputy warden.

Discipline problems

The sources also described a recent incident in which a captain was put on leave while under investigation for workplace harassment, was allowed back to work a short number of days later, but then had to be quickly removed from the prison a second time when the complainant brought the matter to the attention of top county officials.

Broad + Liberty has changed the names of the persons involved because the complaining party has not made the allegations public. This outlet also does not have contact information for the accused in order to reach out for that person’s side of the story.

The sources described an incident in which a Haitian immigrant, Sgt. Bernard, was in a shift command office when a Captain Hackett came in. Bernard alleges Hackett harassed him by ordering him to make coffee, stole a pen out of his shirt pocket, and then shoved him, asking, “What are you going to do about it, pussy?”

Sources say the entire matter was caught on tape.

Bernard reported the incident, and Hackett was placed on leave for an investigation. Sources say just a handful of days later, Hackett was allowed back to work — an unusually short time for an investigation to be fully run.

Infuriated, Bernard wrote to county officials in Media.

Sources say once county officials heard from Bernard, they immediately overruled the decision for him to return, and he was immediately placed on administrative leave — for a second time. The net effect was that someone at the top of county government — a member or members of the county council, or the county’s executive director — had to effectively overrule Warden Williams in placing Hackett back on leave.

Confounding the issue is the sources say others have been fired from the prison for far less serious incidents. Both sources say they’ve seen other incidents — including one in which an employee was fired — in which other employees were disciplined much more harshly than Hackett, yet had appeared to do far less. The sources say discipline in the prison has begun to feel capricious and political.

Current conditions

Both sources say there were more than 30 instances of inmate-on-inmate violence in April, an incredibly high number. Statistics from 2018 and 2019 show that the prison reported no instances of inmate-on-inmate assault in either of those years. In 2022, the county reported 79 total instances of inmate-on-inmate assault.

Issues of contraband persist. The same sources said there were about two dozen narcotics and narcotics paraphernalia seizures in the facility in April.

An inspection report from the state department of corrections in December noted that investigators walked through two hazy cell pods while “[observing] the significant odor of contraband smoke.”

“The smoke had an odor similar to burned elicit [sic] substances,” the report also noted.

Meanwhile, the county has stopped responding to basic requests for information.

When Broad + Liberty asked the county to confirm the cause of death for an inmate who died in January, the county’s spokeswoman, Adrienne Marofsky, directed us to the medical examiner’s office for the person’s autopsy — a document that costs $500.

Broad + Liberty also asked for the name and cause of death for an inmate who died in March, 2023. Marofsky directed us to the county’s Right to Know page — in essence, telling us to file an open records request, a process that could take more than a month or longer to obtain meaningful information.

This reporter also asked for an interview with Warden Williams or County Councilor and Jail Oversight Board Chairman Kevin Madden at any point in June. That request was denied.

The county has managed to significantly increase the number of inmates who are successfully completing their GED while in prison. But recidivism — the county’s number one reason for retaking full management control — has essentially remained unchanged at about 60 percent two years into the county’s control.

The county did not respond to a request for comment to any of the issues presented above.

County issues

The persistent turmoil at the prison continues at a time when the county is facing new challenges and scandals.

Just last week, the county fired its emergency services director, Timothy Boyce, amid allegations of workplace misconduct.

Meanwhile, the county has been laying the groundwork for a large tax increase amid its spending on the prison, the new health department, and other projects. As Broad + Liberty previously reported, Councilwoman Christine Reuther said in a meeting that the county was facing a “sizable” tax increase.

Weeks after that report, the Delaware County Daily Times reported that a future tax increase could be in the double digits.

Editor’s note: Broad + Liberty is in the process of purchasing four autopsies from the Delaware County medical examiner as part of our continued reporting on the GWHCF. This will cost $2,000 in total. If you believe this journalism is valuable and would like to help defray those costs, please donate here.

(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

For the second December in a row, an official or employee associated with the Delaware County prison has publicly gone before county council to alert them to sinking morale and dangerous conditions within the prison.

The latest warning comes as the prison has witnessed ten deaths since the county’s own warden took over management of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in 2022. Additionally, new data show the county is failing to lower recidivism rates — the singular measure by which the county said it should be judged regarding its management takeover.

(Note: While the official transfer of power from the private company to government management happened in April of 2022, the county’s new handpicked warden, Laura Williams, was installed in her position by February of that year, according to county documents.)

Other data like assaults and overtime pay also raise questions about whether overall conditions have continued to worsen since the county takeover as the prison’s union and some employees have claimed.

At the December meeting of council, Prison Employees Independent Union President Frank Kwaning implored the five members, all Democrats, to dig deeper into conditions at the prison.

“The [union] members are as frustrated as they could be. So through the members, I am told to let you know that the council should step in. Go to the facility. Talk to the members. The morale is at its lowest level. One may have thought that with this interim agreement that we have with the $3 raise that we have gotten — and we thank the council for agreeing with the union for the $3 raise — we were of the view that with the $3 raise, the morale was going to be up. But because of the treatment that has been meted out to the members, the morale is at its lowest, at best.”

Councilmember Richard Womack apologized.

“I’m sorry to hear that the morale is so low in the prison. I’m not sure why that is. It’s not our goal that the morale be down. And we would likely try and see if we could fix that in some kind of way.”

Councilmember Kevin Madden, who chairs the county’s Jail Oversight Board and who spearheaded the prison’s transition from private management to public, responded to Kwaning through the lens of the ongoing union negotiations.

“Mr. Kwaning, I recognize your position as head of the union. Given the fact there is an open negotiation over an agreement, I will, as always, refrain from engaging in a back-and-forth about such things. But I will certainly remind you and others that I am regularly at the facility and I am regularly interacting with the workforce. So, you know, any suggestion that council is not involved regularly with our facility would be inaccurate.”

In 2023, the prison saw five deaths, just as it had the previous year. One of those deaths was the “delayed homicide” of Mustaffa Jackson, which Broad + Liberty has reported on extensively. Of the four others, one was a suicide, one was a medical emergency for an inmate who was playing basketball, and two appeared to be overdose deaths at the prison’s intake department, meaning the persons may have taken the fatal dose sometime before entering the facility.

According to statistics dating back to 2015, there is no consecutive two-year period under the previous private management for which there were ten deaths. The highest two-year death total under the private management was seven, across the years 2018-19.

Minutes from the November meeting of the Jail Oversight Board also indicate that the county has made no progress in reducing recidivism, its key motivation for moving management from privately run to government.

Prior to the government’s management takeover, county spokeswoman Adrienne Marofsky said of the county’s ambitions, “There really is just one metric [to be judged by]: recidivism. Currently over 6 out of 10 inmates at GWH have been there before.  We can do better.  And doing better would mean a reduction in the prison population, and a reduction in the cost to the taxpayer.”

More than 21 months into the project, none of those goals are near fruition with the exception of reducing the overall population.

Minutes of the Jail Oversight Board from the last three years of private management, 2019 through 2021, show the GWHCF’s recidivism rate hovered at 60 percent — exactly as Marofsky had described.

But the recidivism rate in 2022, in which the county took over in April, held at 61 percent.

Meeting minutes from November 2023, show a slight upward tick to 63.8 percent.

Additionally, there has been no reduction in cost to the taxpayer so far.

When a consultant group in April 2021 presented several budget scenarios to the Jail Oversight Board as it prepared to transition, it predicted the county’s topmost yearly cost would be about $49 million. But that scenario included a mostly full prison.

The lowest cost scenario was $43 million, a cost which assumed a far lower average daily population.

However, even though county officials have reduced the prison population by 20 percent, the 2024 budget for the prison is $53 million. Shortly after the November elections, the county council raised taxes, with escalating prison costs contributing to that decision.

Assaults held steady in the first year of government management according to the annual prison data it submits to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. However, the 2022 assault numbers came amidst a drastically lower population.

Finally, overtime data from the county shows a steep increase across the past year.

By November of 2022, the county had spent roughly $3.9 million on overtime. By November 2023, that figure climbed to $6.4 million.

The numbers could be indicative of a workforce that is stretched thin and experiencing difficulties retaining staff.

Although Kwaning is the union president for the correctional workers, he is no longer employed at the prison. The new county management terminated his employment along with the union vice president, Ashley Gwaku, during the transition.

Kwaning, Gwaku, and the rest of the union allege the county’s decision to fire the top two leaders of the union was a strategic move to weaken the union. Warden Laura Williams said the pair were let go because of suspensions they had been given previously under private management.

According to an October report from the Inquirer, “Kwaning estimated that about 40 to 50 union employees were terminated by the county during the management transition before officials instituted an arbitration process that includes a member of the human resources department acting as a mediator.”

In December 2022, guards delivered a similar message of low morale and dangerous conditions to the council.

“We are … in fear of our safety on this job,” Albert Johnson, a security guard, said at the time. “As of yesterday — two inmates stabbed. There have been more deaths in this prison since the county has come on. We are fearful for our lives with cells that do not lock, from inmates that come out when they want. We get feces, we get urine thrown on us on a daily basis.”

The county did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.