March 25, 2024
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Philadelphia prisons commissioner Blanche Carney is expected to retire in April. The photo above shows the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center in Northeast Philadelphia, one of the city's four prisons.
Blanche Carney, the commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Prisons, will retire in early April after overseeing the city's correctional facilities for the last eight years, city officials said Monday.
In a statement thanking Carney for her years of service, Mayor Cherelle Parker said the city's prison system is "in transition," and a national search will be conducted to find a new commissioner. An interim leader was not immediately named.
“Commissioner Carney led the system under times of great stress and duress," Parker said. "There will be no shortage of second-guessing her performance. However, I have a great deal of respect for the job the commissioner has done."
Carney, who spent 28 years in the prisons department, was appointed commissioner in 2016 by former mayor Jim Kenney. She was the first woman to serve in the role. Her last day is expected to be April 5.
The prisons system has come under mounting scrutiny in response to a series of high-profile inmate escapes in the last year. Carney had been facing questions about the security of the city's four prisons and increasing internal discord over their operations.
Last May, inmates Ameen Hurst and Nasir Grant escaped from the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center (PICC) in Holmesburg after another inmate allegedly served as a lookout during the jailbreak. That incident came days after the Philadelphia correctional officers union, AFSCME Local 159, voted "no confidence" in Carney. Union leaders contended that conditions at the city's prisons had "dramatically deteriorated" during her tenure.
Another prisoner, Gino Hagenkotter, escaped from PICC in late November and remained at large for two weeks before he was found dead inside a warehouse in Harrowgate. Hagenkotter was a prisoner at Riverside Correctional Facility but had escaped custody while on a work assignment at an orchard at PICC.
In Janaury, Shane Pryor, a 17-year-old inmate accused of murder, escaped from custody while being transported to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia from the city's Juvenile Justice Services Center. Pryor ran from escort staff after getting out of a transport car in the emergency room parking lot. His escape prompted a four-day manhunt before he was taken into custody on a SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia.
In testimony she provided to City Council last year, Carney said staffing at the prisons department had been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. A report last year from the Pennsylvania Prison Society noted increases in violence at city prisons, more lockdowns and reduced quality of life for inmates and staff.
During the eight years Carney oversaw the city's prisons, Philadelphia's inmate population declined from a baseline of 8,106 prisoners to just over 4,700 by February of this year.
