One hundred people incarcerated in Philadelphia’s jails awaiting trial have been released as part of an effort to reduce the city’s jail population amid what advocates have called “dangerous” conditions and an ongoing staffing shortage. Over five weeks, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, in partnership with the District Attorney’s Office and the First Judicial District, worked to identify a list of people charged with relatively low-level offenses and who remained in jail because they couldn’t afford bail, said Andrew Pappas, pretrial managing director for the defenders. Pappas and his team were “looking at the individual, looking at their big picture, and saying, you know, this person doesn’t need to be locked up.” Municipal Court Judge Karen Simmons held weekly emergency bail hearings to review the cases and determine whether a person’s bail should be reduced, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Some 19 women and 81 men facing 123 cases saw their bail reduced and were released, Pappas said. About 35% were ordered to some form of pretrial supervision and about a quarter received social services, like addiction treatment and housing support. Those released, who faced charges that ranged from drug possession and retail theft to illegal gun possession, had few, if any, previous arrests, Pappas said. The majority would likely be offered probation if convicted, and even so, he said, are all presumed innocent until then. “They have a right to not be incarcerated pretrial for a crime they have not been convicted of,” he said.
The jails are dangerous, Pappas said, particularly amid an ongoing and unprecedented staffing shortage of correctional officers. The staffing crisis has continued for so long that, over the summer, a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit over conditions at the jails held city officials in contempt for not taking the necessary steps to mitigate the issue.