PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia prisons are no longer out of compliance with any provision of a federal court settlement, in a class-action lawsuit that dates back to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest report from the federal monitor — who is assigned to inspect the prisons to make sure they’re complying with the settlement — shows the city in substantial compliance with two-thirds of the provisions and in partial compliance with the rest.
The report found that the Philadelphia Prisons Department made more progress in the last six months of 2025 than in any of the previous seven reporting periods.
The report says the city has increased staffing, improved health care, and provided better access to phone calls, in-person visits and technology.
As a result, Judge Gerald McHugh ordered that monitoring on 18 of the provisions can stop.
The monitor noted, however, only partial compliance on issues including sanitation, behavioral health care, out-of-cell time to prisoners in segregation, and access to the law library, so monitoring will continue for those issues.
Prisons Commissioner Michael Resnick said he hopes the entire monitoring process will be over by the end of the year.
“We are now in a much more abridged settlement agreement,” he said. “The things we satisfied are gone. They’ve been dismissed, so it’s a narrowed focus.”
The suit was filed in 2020 when overcrowding and understaffing led to dangerous prison conditions. The settlement was extended twice as the city struggled to recover.
Resnick was hired two years ago, pledging reform.
