Philly prisons: What about the good guys?

I APOLOGIZE to the corrections officers and supervisors who felt tainted by yesterday's story about Michael "Fat Mike" Davis, who died after an incident at the Philadelphia Detention Center.

"The article made us all look like animals," said one of the prison employees who had spoken with my colleague Dana DiFilippo and me about inmate Davis, on the condition of anonymity. They said that Davis had been dragged, facedown, to the Detention Center's psych unit, suffering injuries that his family believes contributed to his death.

"We are disgusted by what happened. You should've said that."

It wasn't our intent to imply that no one at the prison is alarmed by Davis' death. In fact, we learned of it only because prison workers were so fearful of it being "swept under the rug" that they alerted the Daily News.

So let me be clear:

There are decent corrections officers and supervisors in the city's six jails and satellite lockups. And they are appalled by egregious behavior by colleagues who often are allowed to get away with wrongdoing that should never be tolerated.

The staffers with whom we spoke are glad that Davis' death has been referred to the District Attorney's Office. You know what else would make them happy? If someone also looked into rampant selling of contraband in the prisons - which happens only with the cooperation of dirty prison employees.

Here's how it works:

A friend of an inmate meets outside the prison with a prison staffer and pays him or her to smuggle something to a loved one. A cellphone? That'll be $500. Cigarettes? Fifty bucks a pack. Drugs? Accordingly, Percocet costs more than weed.

"This place is like a cartel," an officer at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility told me yesterday, while the jail was in a 36-hour lockdown prompted by a tip that two guns were loose in the prison. "An inmate can get anything they want if they know the right guard."

Prison spokeswoman Shawn Hawes said no guns were found during the lockdown; another employee told me it netted a few small, handmade weapons. A search of random cells last month pulled a bigger haul: about 20 small bags of weed and 11 cellphones, still in their packages, worth $5,500.

"Behind that will be a lot of repercussions," the employee said. "That's a lot of money to lose."

Sometimes, the vibe in Philly prisons feels like old-home week to inmates and corrections officers who know each other from "the outside." Indeed, a former inmate told me, his cellmate knew a certain guard because the cellmate had been the guard's drug dealer in their old neighborhood.

The officer smuggled the cellmate "anything he wanted," says the ex-inmate, who got an eyeful on State Road before charges against him were dropped. "Weed, cigarettes. He'd sell to anyone he knew from the 'hood."

Prison Commissioner Louis Giorla is aware of the ties that can bind staff to inmates. He said as much in January, during hearings before the Review Panel on Prison Rape, sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department. He was there with Terence Clark, warden of Riverside Correctional Facility (Philly's women's prison), which the department singled out as having one of the highest sexual-victimization rates in the country.

"Because we are located in a small geographical area, the individuals that we hire must be city residents," Giorla told the panel. "A lot of the staff that we hire and retain are either socially or sometimes related to inmates. That creates an uncomfortable situation, not only for them, and in some cases, they overstep the bounds.

"When you come to work and you look at a holding cell at people who came in overnight and one of those individuals may be the person who stole your car or somebody you went to high school with or somebody you even dated, it creates an uncomfortable situation for the officer. Sometimes it places them in an area of temptation that we don't like to acknowledge, and of course, our regulations prohibit.

"You know, where we take a no-nonsense view and wherever necessary, we will dismiss staff who overstep."

The prison employees with whom I spoke wished Giorla and his administrators took as hard a line with their own relatives and friends who are employed in the system, many of whom seem to be given unfair breaks or perks.

They pointed out last year's reprimand of John Delaney, then-warden of Curran-Fromhold, for "mishandling" employee money. A lowly staffer would've been suspended or fired, they said.

And the demotion of Capt. Deurward Spellman, former head of the Philadelphia Prisons Training Academy, for his "inappropriate" relations with female students. Why wasn't he canned, like any rank-and-file employee would have been?

And the plum posts and promotions given to employees with less experience but more connections than better-qualified peers.

As one staffer lamented, "Being treated well here, whether you're an employee or an inmate, depends on who you know."

To hardworking prison employees, that's a crime.

Phone: 215-854-2217

On Twitter: @RonniePhilly

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