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| Housing more at Holmesburg Prison |
| By Marcia Gelbart |
| Published: 04/21/2009 |
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To help relieve prison overcrowding, a senior Nutter administration official yesterday raised the prospect of housing hundreds more inmates at the former Holmesburg Prison in Northeast Philadelphia. "We would not have to worry about lawsuits and triple-celling," Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison, who oversees public safety issues, said during a City Council hearing about the prison department's $250 million budget next year. He said while no immediate plans were in the works, the 110-year-old prison would be an ideal site to locate temporary facilities that could provide much-needed housing for about 600 inmates. The idea of erecting a temporary structure inside Holmesburg's walls is not new. Both the Rendell and Street administrations explored the concept. Leon King, prisons commissioner under Mayor John F. Street and a city lawyer during the Rendell years, said yesterday that the idea was ultimately rejected because of a lack of funds, the high cost of improving the physical plant at the prison and of bringing in utilities, and Council opposition. The city, with 9,440 inmates in its prison system, is just months away from reaching an average daily prison population of 10,000 with no more room left in its existing jails, Prison Commissioner Louis Giorla said. Closed in 1995, Holmesburg was known for riots that took place behind its 35-foot-high walls. It was replaced by the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. Gillison made his remarks in response to concern by City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, whose Northeast district includes the Holmesburg Prison. She said Gillison visited her Council office in January to discuss the idea of reopening it. "I gave you a list of reasons why I would oppose it," Krajewski reminded him yesterday. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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