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| More than 500 end hunger strike over prison policies |
| By philly.com |
| Published: 08/11/2004 |
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After months of being locked in their cells for significant parts of the day, unable to make phone calls, take showers or simply stretch in the yard, more than 500 inmates at the Curran Fromhold Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania engaged in a hunger strike over the weekend. On Friday inmates in two units in the C-building refused their evening meal in protest of the living conditions. On Saturday and Sunday five other units, each with about 80 inmates, joined the cause. It was something of a rarity in the minds of many prison watchers, a peaceful, organized response to what inmates consider a miscarriage of prison policy. But the city's response was equally subtle. Instead of lashing out in complaint against the inmates or meting out punishment, Prison Commissioner Leon King had his senior staff meet with inmate block representatives. As a result, a correctional lieutenant was removed from his post and disciplined, King said. "I really can't speak to the details yet, but we had a violation of policy," he said. In the coming months, King said, the city will add about 180 corrections officers, which he hopes will reduce the need for such widespread restrictions on movement. A class of 45 will start work on Monday but they are not part of the 180-officer cohort that will start getting training at the end of the month. The prison commissioner, formerly a city law department attorney, also called for a meeting of his top staff today to determine the extent to which his orders for a "rolling restrictive movement" have been twisted into a more extreme "lockdown." King said he's also expecting an investigative report on allegations from female inmates at the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center that they were subjected to what amounted to lockdown conditions over many weeks. |
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