Were holiday stabbings in Philly prisons connected to lower staffing?
A Saturday night attack marked the third inmate stabbed at a city correctional facility in less than 24 hours.
Three Philadelphia prison inmates were stabbed during the Thanksgiving weekend, a little over a week since a man accused of killing a Temple University police officer was himself attacked behind bars by a knife-wielding assailant. None of the altercations was fatal.
It’s not surprising that the recent violence erupted at holiday time, when there are fewer security staff members on duty, Claire Shubik-Richards, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, said Sunday afternoon.
“The same problem occurs during Philadelphia Eagles games,” she added, “when many staff people are off.” Shubik-Richards said her findings are based on frequent interviews of inmates by members of the 230-year-old society, the only organization in Pennsylvania with the legal authority to visit any of the state’s 85 prisons and jails.
Representatives of the Philadelphia Department of Prisons did not comment on Shubik-Richards’ statements by publication time.
To collect information on prison conditions, Shubik-Richards said the society compiles reports after members speak with prisoners. In a report from October 2023, society members had conducted 64 interviews of incarcerated men and women in city facilities.
Inmates referenced “a dangerous absence of security staff on a regular basis, especially on weekends, holidays, and during Philadelphia Eagles games,” according to the report.
In the weekend attacks, a 32-year-old inmate was hospitalized Saturday in stable condition after being stabbed around 6 p.m. several times in the head and face at Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center, where the attacker was arrested, according to police.
Authorities did not say whether the person arrested had been incarcerated at the prison, which houses adult men on the 8300 block of State Road in Northeast Philadelphia. However, someone with knowledge of the investigation confirmed Sunday that both the victim and the alleged assailant are inmates.
As of Sunday afternoon, the inmate who was stabbed remained hospitalized in stable condition, officials said.
The attack occurred a day after two prisoners stabbed each other at nearby Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. In the Friday night case, a 30-year-old man was stabbed three times in the back, police said, and a 31-year-old man was stabbed in the head shortly before 7:30 p.m. The men were not seriously injured. They were treated at the hospital and released. Authorities said a weapon was recovered, but they provided no additional information.
» READ MORE: Two inmates stabbed inside Philadelphia jail
On Nov. 21, an incarcerated man attacked fellow prisoner Miles Pfeffer, who is accused of fatally shooting Temple University Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald last year. The attack occurred in a communal recreation area at Curran-Fromhold, where Pfeffer is being held as he awaits his murder trial.
That evening, Rafael Vanegas slipped out of his cell and repeatedly stabbed Pfeffer, leaving the 19-year-old with puncture wounds on his forehead, inner right hip, and right hand, authorities said.
During an interview on WURD on Saturday, Philadelphia Prisons Commissioner Michael R. Resnick agreed that correctional facilities in the city have been plagued by staffing issues. Resnick told the radio station that staffing levels were at about 54%, which contributed to the recent incidents.
The city’s defenders have raised alarm about what they call dangerous conditions inside the jails. As part of an effort to reduce the incarcerated population amid the staffing shortage, the Defender Association of Philadelphia worked with authorities this fall to get 100 people awaiting trial on relatively low-level offenses released from the facilities.
In July, a federal judge ruled that Philadelphia’s prison system is in contempt of court for failing to follow an agreement in a long-running lawsuit over conditions in the city jails.
U.S. District Court Judge Gerald A. McHugh acknowledged that the city had taken steps to mitigate a staffing crisis in the jails causing prolonged lockdowns, mounting chaos on housing units, and delays in access to services including medical care. But he said those efforts were insufficient.
Staff writer Michelle Myers contributed to this article.