PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The head of a Philadelphia prison is stepping down following a series of inmate deaths and escapes.
Blanche Carney, who has overseen the city’s four jails and jails since 2016, said in a letter to officials on Monday that April 5 would be her last day, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. I told him it would be. A department spokesperson confirmed that Carney’s retirement is imminent.
A Pennsylvania inmate who escaped from prison about four months ago was arrested after being released from Philadelphia Planet Fitness.
The city’s lockdown has been in response to a spike in violence and the escape of four prisoners over the last six months.
Blanche Carney, director of the Philadelphia Bureau of Prisons, announced Monday that April 5 will be the last day. (Fox News)
Last year, the Pennsylvania Prison Association, a group that monitors the state’s prisons, released a report after interviewing about 50 Philadelphia inmates and documenting “dangerous and poor conditions in Philadelphia prisons.” The report said prisoners were “held in rat-infested cages, poorly fed and without adequate medical care for weeks or months until their mental health deteriorated.” . According to the report, 10 inmates died in 2022.
Philadelphia’s correctional officers’ union voted unanimously in Carney last year, claiming the facility was understaffed and in “chaos.”
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Carney, the first woman to serve as prison commissioner, acknowledged the problems in a letter to prison officials, saying the pandemic has “placed an enormous strain on corrections operations around the world.”
