Go Directly to Jail

Alternatives to prison are badly needed in Philly. But neighbors are trying to block the first one.

by Holly Otterbein

[ criminal justice ]

The building that could house the city's first day reporting center is old, empty and industrial, and at its home on 52nd Street and Grays Avenue in Southwest Philly, it's got friends that look the same. Walk northeast of the site for three entire blocks and you'll be hard-pressed to find another human; but overgrown weeds, hulking brick buildings and dumped tires are everywhere.

This is where Ronald and David Watts, a pair of father-and-son developers, want to put a day reporting center, a rigorous supervision program that would provide pretrial defendants, parolees and nonviolent offenders — especially drug users — with job training, mental health care and sometimes housing, instead of sending them to jail. The project would also provide transitional housing for ex-offenders.

Who wants day reporting centers in Philadelphia? Nearly everyone in the city's justice system, from the District Attorney's Office to the prisons commissioner to the Defender Association of Philadelphia — groups that aren't always known for seeing eye to eye. In other cities, such centers have drastically cut prison costs and reduced recidivism rates. But here, the interests of neighbors who are fighting this project may come at the expense of what a body of evidence shows is the common good of the city.

Last year, the Wattses responded to the city's request for proposals for day reporting centers, the brainchild of Everett Gillison, the deputy mayor for public safety. Gillison wants to see 10 day reporting centers throughout the city. To him, these centers are a way to tackle the problems caused by a draconian, outdated criminal justice system.

"In the last 20 or 30 years, we've been locking people up who are drug users, which is, in essence, a public-health problem," Gillison says. "There's a different way to help these people help themselves — and lower the recidivism rate. Get them to a day reporting center, give them services, and don't let them graduate to the next level. This 30-year experiment has done nothing but criminalize people."

The current model hasn't come cheap, either: The prisons system was one of the only state agencies to receive a boost in funding for 2010-11, getting $82 million more than the year before. The city's prisons come at a price of nearly $240 million per year; it costs about $95 each day to house an inmate. According to the Defender Association, day reporting centers cut that price almost in half: They cost $50 per inmate per day.

Last month, Jack Wagner, the state's auditor general, called on Pennsylvania to freeze prison construction and instead pursue "alternative-sentencing programs," like day reporting centers. He estimates that this could save the state $50 million next year, and $350 million over the next four years.

Evidence shows that day reporting centers not only save money, but tackle something that is particularly problematic in Philadelphia: They encourage pretrial defendants to show up to court. According to a 2010 Pew report, 30 percent of Philadelphia's defendants failed to appear at their trials — which has led, in part, to the infamous $1 billion in uncollected bail money. According to a 2009 study by Luminosity Inc., an organization that consults on criminal justice matters, medium- and high-risk pretrial defendants who go to day reporting centers and other alternative programs were more likely to appear for trial and less likely to commit crimes in the meantime.

In a city where 57 percent of its inmates are simply awaiting trial, that could make a huge difference.

In addition, the lack of a single day reporting center in Philadelphia puts it far behind many other cities: Camden, New York City, Baltimore, Memphis and Chicago all utilize them. Several states, such as New Jersey, use day reporting centers extensively. More importantly, studies have shown that, in everywhere from Franklin County, Pa., to Sedgwick County, Kan., day reporting centers are one of the only ways to lower recidivism rates for parolees.

"This isn't rocket science," says Gillison. "I'm just trying to bring Philadelphia up to where a lot of jurisdictions already are."

If neighbors get their way, however, that won't happen. Though the Wattses have not yet won a contract from the city, Southwest community members have already staged three protests in the last two weeks against the proposed center. Just last Wednesday about 100 people braved the bitter cold to rally against it. They're upset because, even though the vast majority of land surrounding the proposed site is barren and industrial, there is a plot of houses just southeast of it, as well as a day care center. Last week they also staged a silent protest at City Council's Thursday meeting. In fact, they've been speaking out against the center since early 2010, and they plan to continue — with the vigor of the Egyptians, one middle-age black man said.

Their concerns are simple and understandable: They don't want to be so close to so many criminals; they don't want to wait for the bus next to someone who's awaiting trial. "There's a residential community within 200 feet," says Ann Brown, a local ward leader.

And neighbors aren't keen on the term "day reporting center," either. Their signs read, "Zoning Board: Deny This Proposed Prison Project" and "Build a Prison Where You Live, Mayor Nutter."

"They're asking for 400 beds," says Brown. "You make the call as to whether or not that's a prison."

But Byron Cotter, director of alternative sentencing for the Defender Association, explains, "A unique problem to Philadelphia, as opposed to other counties, is that approximately 30 percent of clients don't have homes. ... [Any center here is] going to have to provide some type of housing."

This week, the Zoning Board of Adjustment stopped accepting public comments for the project. Now it will decide whether to give the day reporting center in Southwest Philly the go-ahead. Historically, the board has given heavy weight to the concerns of neighbors — and these neighbors have amassed 2,700 signatures against this project.

The board's decision could affect how communities react to day reporting centers in the future, and whether Philadelphia will ever get one at all. If it can't go up in a place as industrial and empty as 52nd Street and Grays Avenue, it's hard to imagine where it could go.

Gillison is hopeful, though. With a little education, he believes he'll win people over. Southwest Philadelphia, he says, is one of the city's "hot spots" for crime, and most ex-offenders go back home. In other words, these neighbors are already close to criminals, and if Gillison can convince them that a day reporting center may help criminals go straight, he could change folks' minds.

"We cannot live in a NIMBY world," he says. "All that does is foster a prison industrial complex, which everyone I talk to is against. People are coming home from prisons every day. These are your brothers, your sisters who need help."

(holly.otterbein@citypaper.net)