Update
In cities across Pennsylvania, jail conditions played a decisive role in recent elections. Last week, Allegheny and Dauphin counties both ushered in new county leaders committed to tackling the humanitarian crises behind bars.
Allegheny County executive to take a hands-on approach
Allegheny County voters elected Sara Innamorato as county executive, who made oversight and reform of the Allegheny County Jail a priority issue in her campaign. Since 2020, over 20 people have died in the jail’s custody, a rate far exceeding the national average. Many of them died after experiencing medical emergencies in a jail that has struggled with chronic shortages of medical and correctional staff. In the Prison Society’s survey of people incarcerated in the ACJ in the summer of 2022, 52% reported being unable to access medical care.
Innamorato promised to make the Jail Oversight Board more effective at bringing transparency to the jail and holding its leaders accountable for addressing unsafe conditions. She has pledged to regularly attend the board’s meetings, unlike her predecessor, and to appoint formerly incarcerated people to board seats reserved for ordinary citizens of the county. Last week, Innamorato attended her first Jail Oversight Board meeting, where she questioned jail administrators about their work recruiting medical and correctional staff. Her appearance at the Board was an encouraging first step toward putting her campaign platform into practice.
Dauphin County commissioner elected after calling out deaths in jail
In Dauphin County, a political outsider who made jail reform the focus of his campaign was elected as a county commissioner. Justin Douglas, a pastor, fitness instructor, and Uber driver, promised to make changes to the Dauphin County Prison, another jail that has seen an outsize number of deaths among incarcerated people. Douglas spent a fifth of his small campaign fund on a single highway billboard calling attention to the 18 deaths that had occurred since 2019. On the strength of that message, he was elected to one of the three county commissioner offices.
New Philadelphia mayor’s public safety plans should include jails
Like in Allegheny and Dauphin counties, deaths in Philadelphia jails have soared in recent years. Since the pandemic, 46 people have died in Philadelphia jails, including six who were murdered. Like the jails in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Philadelphia jails are plagued by understaffing and failing physical conditions. Outgoing county administrations in all three cities attempted to deny, hide, or ignore the glaring jail problems. But, unlike the new leaders in Allegheny and Dauphin counties, Philadelphia's new mayor has been largely silent on the city's jail crisis.
Voters made history by electing Cherelle Parker, the first woman, and first Black woman, to serve as Philadelphia's mayor. Parker says that public safety is her top priority as mayor in a city plagued by soaring levels of gun violence, yet fixing the prisons hardly ever came up in her campaign.
While the Prison Society is honored to participate in Mayor Parker's transition committee, it is notable that the Mayor's action plan for her first 100 days in office, makes no mention of the Philadelphia prisons where 4,700 people are confined daily in unsafe, degrading conditions that put the city's safety at risk.
The changing of the guard in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg shows that voters care about what happens behind bars; officials who promise change and transparency can win on those issues. The Prison Society looks forward to partnering with the new administrations to help them fulfill their promises.
