...you have a prison riot, a possibility anytime prisoners are packed like sardines into facilities designed for the safe and effective housing of a fraction of their current number.
Had an interesting chat with my colleague from the WHYY News Department, Susan Phillips, on Friday. She was working on a story about the prison overcrowding situation in Philadelphia prisons and she brought up an incident that had occurred during Friday's City Council hearings.
First some background. Apparently, the city is considering reopening part of the Old Holmesburg Prison, which was shut down in 1995 and replaced with new facilities. You know it as the castle-like structure (pictured) that rises up along I-95 as you head north to Bucks County. Councilwoman (and erstwhile lounge singer) Joan Krajewski, who represents the district in which the prisons are located and who is featured in Susan's story, refuses to allow the plan to move forward. She rose up in opposition to the $4 million plan to renovate the old place and said they could put the overcrowded prisoners, "wherever they want to go but it won't be in the sixth district... it will not be in the sixth district, I assure you. I will never put up with more prisons in the Northeast."
However, when Susan had a chance to ask the Councilwoman what her solution to the problem of overcrowding might be, the Krajewski basically repeated that exact quote above. Over and over. Each time she was asked if she had any ideas (funny things, those ideas) she continued to repeat the mantra of "not in the sixth district." At least she was on message.
Now, the issue of prison overcrowding is a complex one that ties together several other issues of drug abuse, drug offenses, quality of life offenses, repeat offenders, unemployment, poverty and so on. I don't expect for anyone, including Krajewski to have the whole answer and be able to deliver it in a pithy soundbite. But, to fail to acknowledge the complexity of the problem and to stick with that opposition line is just another example of the failure of leadership and the dearth of ideas coming out of City Council.
Prison overcrowding is the issue of the day for a few reasons. One, because the 'HYY news department provided a good news peg for it. Two, even though the issue directly affects only a small percentage of people (prisoners, their families and friends, guards and their families and friends), it represents a failure on so many different fronts that addressing it in the manner it deserves would go a long way to setting our elected officials towards solving those other problems. Third, without a large, vote-swinging constituency to draw attention to it, the candidates for mayor may try to ignore it. Afterall, it takes some real skill to deliver and consider ideas such as alternative detention or treatment for non-violent offenders without becoming a victim of such ready-made tv ad slogans as "soft on crime" or having a plan to "free the criminals."
Comments (23)
To reduce the prison population and many other problems, (start megabuilding), condition society to be rich, rather than secure.
Not all of us , are meant to be secure. I know, though many have tried to conditioned me, never again.
bye ROY
Posted by Roy M. Philip![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://blogs.phillynews.com/dailynews/nextmayor/nav-commenters.gif)
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December 7, 2006 10:32 PM
Open the old prison back up... & I live in the N.E.. Holmesburg prison was there forever, generally w/ out incident. I'd trade a safer Philadelphia for (2) prisons in the same area. The fact that they don't have enough space to put these criminals leads to more of a revolving door for these bumbs. No wonder crime is totally out of control in this city. It's about time we get TOUGH on crime!!
Posted by Steve K. | January 12, 2007 3:43 PM
Councilwoman Krajewski is totally right about her firm position on no more prison in Northeast Philadelphia, and that's all she has to put forth, really. Just a simple, straightforward no. Add to this that the existing prisons here in Northeast Philadelphia need to and must have a firm cap on how many prisoners they hold at any given time. Another what I call a no brainer. For all told there's no complexities here just so long as we stick to those two things. If others have a problem with that, well, we of Northeast Philadelphia really can't be bothered with it. For from our vantage point no means no. For we're a residential community here first and foremost. That's it. And those not of here should really just be grateful that we allow there to be any prison facilities at all given that. And if they're not grateful in that way, then it's high time they learn to be. Again, it's a no brainer.
Posted by Steve W. | February 27, 2007 3:47 AM
The REALITY is that Northeast Philadelphia simply cannot handle more prison facilities then it has taken on already without being greatly downgraded, or downgraded further I should say, in the process. And believe me, going against what I just said there is not going to solve anything. And in the face of this and other major assaults I think it's high time that Northeast Philadelphia start giving some very serious thought to de-consolidation.
For this is a residential area up here. That's it true and best calling. The rest is other people's problems being dumped here. And why should Northeast Philadelphia have to put up with that? Seriously! I mean, if we could solve these problems for other people we would do it in a heartbeat. But our being used as a dumping ground for other people's problems is not solving anything, though it may look that way from Center City or wherever. But just to do the big reality check, no, we don't need any more prison facilities up here, we CAN'T accept any more prison facilities up here. And is the matter "more complex than that"? Well not from our point of view it isn't. To us up here the matter's very simple: No, no more prisons, that's it. And if y'all elsewhere can't grasp that, well gee, I don't know what we're supposed to do about that. For I would say the problems have to be solved at their point of origin, not up here. For instance, how about we draw a line with Center City's ongoing real estate boom now overtaking lower Kensington, North Philadelphia, etc., and designate those areas for creating all new permanent blue collar opportunities instead? For we're no good for doing that up our way. But Kensington, Frankford, North Philadelphia, etc.? Those places are just begging for that.
Meantime, we up here in Northeast Philadelphia have got far better stuff to do that all this other stuff we just can't be bothered with. We want to build a scenic riverside greenway here soon, maybe restore an historic movie theater or two over the next several years, build some more suburban type spread out housing in place of obsoleted NE rowhouses of yore, getting our public schools up here in far better shape, things of that nature. Which is just what Northeast Philadelphia SHOULD be doing right now. The rest as I say is simply not our problem -- because we didn't CREATE that problem, hello-ohhh! As I say, it's other people's. And it's high time they own up to it. Again, a no brainer.
For if you want us to solve the problem we could drop a bomb on the rest of y'all, would that help? Hey, it worked with the Japanese in WWII!
Posted by Steve W. | February 28, 2007 3:07 AM
"And those not of here should really just be grateful that we allow there to be any prison facilities at all given that. And if they're not grateful in that way, then it's high time they learn to be."
Who are you to presume to be in a position of moral superiority to dictate to other neighborhoods what they ought to think or what you will permit?
Posted by Mike | February 28, 2007 2:15 PM
Oh I see. We should view the sacrifice of Northeast Philadelphia as a "good thing," just so long as it makes it possible for a bunch of worthless yuppies, led by the likes of Vern Anastasio, Jeremy Beaudry and Ann Dicker, to take over a part of the city fully unsuitable for such type gentrification, and which will permanently lock in our dependency on China.
Posted by Steve W. | February 28, 2007 11:09 PM
Ah, but to cut straight to the chase here, I'll tell you what: I'll fully support the reactivation of NE Philly's Holmesburg Prison if it's to be a facility for housing Philadelphia's white collar criminals only -- starting with the University of Pennsylvania's notorious Dr. Albert M. Kligman, who between 1951 and 1974 gave us Acres of Skin, and who even to this day admits no remorse over it. Heck, for someone like him I'd even be willing to reactivate the infamous "Klondike"! Call it a "reputable dermatological study."
Posted by Steve W. | March 1, 2007 12:58 AM
The slots? I'm 100% opposed to them here in Philly, while also I only wish to God they never came to New Jersey. New Jersey had been absolutely beautiful in every respect before that state went the way of gambling. Once it got casinos, though, I never saw any place once so beautiful become so ugly so fast. I still have nightmares about that.
But focusing on Philly, it certainly will be experimental to see what happens when casinos come to a major city like this. It will be a true first, I believe. There are other cities in the world which have do casinos, such as Melbourne, Australia with its Crown, but not so closely in the downtown area the way we will. In Melbourne's case the Crown is kept well-isolated from the rest of the city in its St. Kilda district. To make comparisons, it would be the same as if our slot parlors were to get built out at the Navy Yard. But to have one in Philadelphia's Fishtown, the other in its Pennsport? Schwew, it's gonna really get insane!
Yet in many ways it's not going to be much of a story if it's just going to be slots parlors v. yuppie-gentrified communities.
For the big story would be if major efforts were underway to bring blue-collar type industry back to those two areas when suddenly wham! -- running totally counter to that two new casinos were proposed for there, compliments of Gov. Rendell, etc. That would be a huge story! But right now? At this moment it's so remarkably bizarre that it's hard to fashion it into a story of any kind. For it's hard if not impossible to feel sorry for yuppies who've been indifferently gentrifying out an area's previous long term blue collar residents. For since WHEN do we take pity on yuppies, particularly when they're of the worst variety that way?! Gentrifiers. That's how crazy that story is right now.
Posted by Steve W. | March 2, 2007 12:01 AM
And I never said my section of the city has the right to dictate policy to other areas. Rather, I was complaining how other areas of the city are dictating policy for my section of the city. I mean, do you think it's OUR idea to have prisons up here? Or that any of us up here are promoting the idea of increasing the number of prison facilities up here?
On the other hand, do you see me anywhere saying, "Hey, let's bring back Moyamemsing Prison in South Philly or let's reactivate Eastern State Penitentiary in Fairmount"?
Where do you get this I'm trying to dictate to other parts of the city? I'm just saying other parts of the city need to take responsibility for their own actions is all and stop dumping off onto us.
Posted by Steve W. | March 6, 2007 3:34 AM
Dan P., I pretty much fully agree with you, while Mike, you're way out there. For somehow you intrepret my complaining about too many prisons being dumped on my community as my seeking to dictate to other communities. As in, Whaaaa??? For I don't know how to come back to that or if it's even worth it to. It's just too far out there.
But Dan P., getting back to you, you're going to laugh when I tell you this, but Holmesburg Prison is how my family line came to be here in Northeast Philadelphia in the first place. My great grandfather, after honorably serving in the Civil War, became an officer at Moyamensing Prison in South Philly for a time and was later commissioned to head up Holmesburg Prison when it was an all-new "state of the art" facility in 1896. Prior to that, meantime, already there had been the Philadelphia House of Correction -- the forerunner of the one that exists today, opened in 1874 and later demolished in 1925. And (to the best of my knowledge at least) both facilities were built with Northeast Philadelphia's full compliance. My great grandfather took up residence in the immediate neighborhood, on Ashburner Street, which in those days was like the Main Line is today. For this WAS the Main Line at that time. And he was well-liked by the well-to-do residents of Northeast Philadelphia at that time so far as I know. For his son and someone called Uncle Roy went on to become leading Holmesburg businessmen and in other positive ways active in the Northeast Philly community. My grandfather was a professional singer and founding member of traveling Chautauqua. But all told I get the sense that in those days, when my great grandfather first settled here, that those in government and residences worked with one another. The dishonor and dictatorship we see here today was all to come much later.
Or putting it another way, Northeast Philadelphia today is very much a one-sided democracy. That is, the everyday residents do their part and ask for fairness and honesty. But the government, prison officials, religious heads, the big hospital operations, owners of local businesses who live outside the city, civic association heads, etc., fail to do theirs. So to the one side there's the democracy, the residents themselves (or at this point should I say "serfs" or "colonists"?), to the other, a dictatorship. And all depending who you ask I suppose, but in my opinion what had been before had been a thousand times better. Or at least in terms of what was publicly known. For apparently things got pretty bad after my great grandfather no longer headed up Holmesburg Prison. The "Klondike," and, of course, Acres of Skin, was all to come much later. That is, when Holmesburg and other facilities like that were no longer headed up by those who LIVE here.
But harking back to the other era, my guess is that when Holmesburg Prison was built here the residents said okay, but it's going to be built by such and such standards. And those seeking to build it said okay to this. And that was as it should be -- democracy. But today the way it works, I don't know what you'd call it other than a dictatorship.
For the time to build more prison facilities here in addition to the ones we have already at this very late stage has long passed. The East Coast Greenway is to be coming through Northeast Philadelphia soon, or if it doesn't, or it fails to in the best possible way, then it will finally be fully clear that yes, we do indeed have a dictatorship here.
For just as it was when Holmesburg Prison was built here over a century ago, while we are saying no to more prisons this time around, we're not saying no to the East Coast Greenway. To that -- just as it once had been with Holmesburg Prison -- we're saying okay, but it's going to be built by such and such standards. But this time around the powers that be -- having turned dictatorial -- are NOT saying okay. They're saying if you don't like it we'll give you more prisons instead. And that's dictatorship pure and simple. And we'll know this for sure if the East Coast Greenway gets built through here all wrongly and more prisons here rise up.
Posted by Steve W. | March 9, 2007 3:31 AM
Dan P., just to clarify, I hold nothing against yuppies in the least per se, given how I, too, (er) just happen to be one as well.
What I meant by my March 2, 2007 post was that in the case of some yuppies wrongfully attempting to gentrify the traditional blue collar communities to the north of Center City (Fishtown, Kensington, etc.) -- expanding on the Center City real estate boom as it were -- but with the SugarHouse Casino proposed for that same part of the city putting a huge dampener on their goal, it's all but impossible to take pity on yuppies in that particular context. For of the many blue collar citizens now still living in that part of the city, if they're to be gentrified out from there as a result of yuppies moving in, gentrified to where exactly? Meaning it's hard pitying those insensitive to that, particularly when they have everything favorable working on their behalf otherwise.
For of the longstanding blue collar residents who will get gentrified out if those yuppies get their way, for that there's no good answer. Right now the "answer" is reactivating Holmesburg Prison, creating more Liddonfield housing projects and other things of that nature up here in Northeast Philadelphia to house these displaced blue collar citizens, while the hell with how they and Northeast Philadelphia's longstanding white collar residents feel about this. That is, how do you pity yuppies in that context?
For if this strategy on their part prevails, not only will Philadelphia's blue collar citizenry be displaced to a part of the city where it will constitute far more harm than good, but a part of the city which is just begging for yuppies to flock to it in droves, and where the yuppie presence will mark a huge improvement over how it is now, will be insanely destroyed in the process. And all for what? Wrongfully transforming a part of the city that by nature is meant to be blue collar industrial (Fishtown, Kensington, etc.)?
For I say no, there's a much better alternative to that, and it's called "Independence Pointe," the site of the former Northern Shipping Co., located in Northeast Philadelphia's Holmesburg section at Rhawn Street and State Road. When attempted to be made use of in a blue collar way in the past it was never really good for that. As such, it was so losing an operation that its owner walked away from it in shear disgust in the late 1970s never to look back.
But if this strategic riverfront land formation up here in Northeast Philadelphia were to be developed with upscale housing, the inland waterway to its immediate southerly side made into a beautiful marina, and with Pennypack Park on the Delaware to its immediate north already in place (and soon to be expanded upon even more with the introduction of the East Coast Greenway), well, this is the ultimate solution to Center City yuppies in need of new housing if you ask me. For just think, in developing Independence Pointe, no longstanding blue collar residents will be gentrified out in the process. And if Independence Pointe itself has any toxic waste concerns, they greatly pale in comparison to the brownfield sites of Fishtown, Kensington and so on.
And in terms of Independence Pointe's convenience to Center City, already to its State Road side it's within easy walking steps to Holmesburg Junction, which handles both the Septa R-7 line between Trenton, NJ and Penn Center and Amtrak service between D.C. and Boston.
But even more impressive is its riverside potential which could easily accommodate the introduction of a several-times-daily water transport commuter service between Independence Pointe and Penns Landing -- see: http://files.myopera.com/ImageGuy1//albums/137610/CC%20View%20From%20IP.jpg.
And in terms of how it should be developed resdential housing-wise, this next link I feel says it all: http://www.ahf.net/1%20%20Seaside%20Florida.jpg. This is of Seaside, Florida, built in the late 1980s, but with a style of architecture that I believe would be just perfect for Independence Pointe.
As for Independence Pointe itself at this minute, it's going nowhere, just sitting there fallow, a total blindspot as it were to those so hellbent on redeveloping Fishtown, Kensington, etc., in ways they're clearly not meant to be, but which Independence Pointe is literally begging for.
Meaning that for the yuppies who want to set their sights higher, Independence Pointe is just waiting for them to take notice of it in a huge way -- that is, those who care to look beyond the herd mentality. For just think: There's no casino proposals up here that have to be wrestled with. Just this beautiful, currently undeveloped enormous waterfront land parcel is all.
Posted by Steve W. | March 13, 2007 1:45 AM
Oops! When you click on that link for Independence Pointe omit the period at the end, and the same with the Seaside, Florida photo link!
Sorry 'bout that!
Posted by Steve W. | March 13, 2007 2:12 AM
Mike: Congratulations for making an excellent point! For you're absolutely right, there is no such thing as "we allow" in a thugacracy (except for the thugs, of course!) I was thinking in terms of democracy when I made that statement, while right now it's totally questionable whether such a thing exists anywhere in Northeast Philadelphia at this stage. If we get the more prison facilities up here then the answer will be no, of course.
And I think that's the point you're trying to make, isn't it?
If so, I hear you and I fully agree.
Posted by Steve W. | March 15, 2007 2:46 AM
Dan P., you're not familiar with how gentrification works? The principle is simply that when well-to-do people move into an area and lift up the standard of living in that community accordingly, the property taxes in that area sharply rise likewise. This, in turn, places a huge financial strain on certain longstanding residents, most particularly if they're such that they have difficulty finding suitable employment for themselves in that area or making money in some other fashion. And that's clearly what we're seeing happening in that portion of the city right now. And the crisis is made many times worse when the new residents moving in don't have to pay any taxes at all, due to the ten-year property tax abatement they receive. This means that the lonstanding residents, a large percentage who simply clearly can't afford it, particularly when jobs they can do well are either in scarcity or nonexistent, must make up the tax shortfall through the taxes they still must pay, or face disclosure. And it they can't afford to make up for that deficit they have three choices therefore: 1) Move out (but to where and with what exactly?); 2) Stay their ground and react -- such as we saw depicted in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing"; 3) Make the crossover from blue collar to white collar and sell off their longstanding properties to buy new ones so as to get in on the ten-year tax abatement as well. If their renters they're out of luck completely. The rents skyrocket above and beyond what they can afford and they simply have to pack up and go accordingly, in many cases straight to homelessness from there. And if they're homeowners and they're shrewd enough, they can luck out by selling their property at a good price. But if they elect to stay yet they can't afford to keep pace with the sharply rising property taxes, they could quickly end up getting foreclosed, meaning that they must depart with nothing, or even deep in debt. And buying up tax foreclosed properties is a very lucrative market in Philadelphia right now, that is, if you're willing to turn a blind eye to the genocidal like aspect to it. Think "Grapes of Wrath."
A far better solution would be to open up that part of the city to reindustrialization once more. The opportunities for it to do so are constantly there; offers are constantly being made in this regard. But such offers keep getting batted away by our politicians each time....er, all except for the gambling thing, of course. Yet on the whole that's no answer. For casinos make money only through people losing money. There is no other way. Sure, they also provide entertainment, dining and lodging as well, but the gambling aspect subsidizes all that, putting out of business independent operations that offer only that. Which is exactly what was seen in Atlantic City's case. And it's naive to think it will be any different here.
But the main purpose of this particular posting (apologies for its being a bit away from the original prison topic) is simply to explain how gentrification works. And even though the yuppies who are used to help drive gentrification are polite and civil, there's the much darker aspect of it that many of them don't see. If they did, and they are truly civil-minded, they would not allow themselves to be used in that fashion. Meantime, you're right; they don't go around with clubs and guns telling the longstanding blue collar residents, "You all have to move out now; we're taking over your neighborhood." But the impact of their moving into certain neighborhoods -- no matter how polite and respectful they may act -- can be every bit as brutal. For imagine living in a house your whole life and suddenly being hit with a property tax bill you couldn't even begin to afford. It would be like somebody telling you your right arm is no longer yours unless you cough up money somehow, and not due to anything that you have done wrong.
With Independence Pointe on the other hand none of that situation currently exists. No one's living there now. And its positioning is such that it could be very easy for new residents of there to get from there to Center City from both ends, whether from Holmesburg Junction to its inland side or the Delaware brought back into play as a water commuting route to the other.
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