PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Blanche Carney is retiring as Philadelphia prisons commissioner.
She made the announcement March 8 in a letter to the Department of Prison staff.
On Monday, Mayor Cherelle Parker thanked Carney for her 28 years of service in the department — eight as commissioner — and announced a nationwide search for her replacement.
Her last day will be April 5.
Scratching the surface
Staff hemorrhage has been one of the many issues to hit Philadelphia prisons under Carney, and it was the key point made by the union representing prison workers when they issued a vote of no confidence in her leadership in May.
In the last year, five inmates have escaped and three have died in conflicts with other inmates.
Noah Barth is prison monitoring director at the Pennsylvania Prison Society. He regularly visits Philly prison facilities to gauge their conditions and talk to inmates and says the recent escapes and killings at Philly prisons, along with a staffing crisis, just scratch the surface of issues within the system.
“But also day-to-day deprivation where people are not getting adequate access to showers, phone calls, toilet paper, family visits … basic things that keep people safe and treated with respect and dignity,” Barth said.
Despite the problems Carney has overseen, Barth doesn’t lay the blame wholly on her.
“Getting the Philadelphia prisons into better conditions is not simply the job of the commissioner of those prisons, or even her team and staff,” he said.
To fix that, Barth said it needed more support from the mayor and City Council.