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Holmesburg Prison opened in 1896 and existed as a key component of the city’s penal facilities until 1995. It was shut down that year upon the celebrated debut of the $140 million Curran-Fromhold — a prison named in tribute to two Holmesburg Prison administrators, warden Patrick N. Curran and his deputy, Robert F. Fromhold, who were stabbed to death during a May 31, 1973, attack by two inmates angered by prison restrictions.
The aging and dilapidated Holmesburg Prison, whose most distinctive feature is its 35-foot-high stone walls, was known for riots now and then and inmate overcrowding, particularly during its last two decades of operation. It held more than 1,000 inmates in the years before it closed.
When the Curran-Fromhold prison opened, it culminated a 10-year struggle by city officials to comply with the order of a federal judge who capped the citywide prison population at 3,750 inmates, a response to civil-rights lawsuits that alleged inhumane conditions and treatment.
Since its closure in ’95, Holmesburg Prison was pressed into action on one other occasion — it temporarily housed protesters detained when the Republican National Convention came to Philadelphia in 2000.
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The recent decision to transfer inmates to Holmesburg seemed the tip of the iceberg for local civil-rights attorney David Rudovsky, whose 1971 lawsuit against the city, alleging prison overcrowding and inhumane conditions, set the stage for the lengthy battle that dragged on until 2000.
On July 25, Rudovsky filed a federal lawsuit against the Street administration, charging the city with violating the U.S. Constitution by putting inmates in overflowing facilities.
"The fact that the city had to resort to reopening a facility that a few years ago they said was too degrading to hold people speaks for itself," Rudovsky, a University of Pennsylvania professor, said during a phone interview last week. "We lose a lot by not treating people with at least some decency."
Rudovsky wants long-term solutions developed to address overcrowding in the city’s prison system. He thinks that inmates held for minor violations, like bench warrants, should be quickly processed and released until court dates. He is involved with prisoner re-entry programs in Frankford, which he said have proved successful in other cases.
"You can’t build your way out of it, you can’t spend your way out of it," Rudovsky said of the mounting prison population.
The city’s prison commissioner, Leon King, agrees. He is unsure how long inmates are expected to stay at Holmesburg Prison.
"My intentions are to close it as soon as possible," he said during a phone interview last week.
King assured that there is full security at the prison, including mobile patrols and an indoor fence guarding against escape.
"It’s safe, it’s secure," said King, who toured the facility three times in its first five days of operation. "The conditions there are five-thousand times better."
While King promised to cap Holmesburg at 80 inmates, prisoners will be coming and going at the facility. Some who were transferred there July 22 have made bail or were sent to other detention facilities. King doesn’t expect any inmate to stay for more than a few days.
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As the citywide inmate population neared 9,000, King said in recent reports that he wants to lower the system’s population to 8,750 by summer’s end. Eventually, he’d like to aim for 8,550. That number, he acknowledged, would still be about 150 over capacity.
As for the recent lawsuit, King said the prison system will remain in contact with Rudovsky to discuss strategies that could ease overcrowding.
"We’ve been talking about it for three years," King said.
In the meantime, the commissioner said, he is "really close" to striking a deal with a New Jersey county to house 200 inmates in a facility there. Still, he agrees with Rudovsky that building more facilities is not the long-term fix to bursting jails.
"We could build a new facility with five-hundred beds, they would be full, and we’d still be in this predicament," King said.
He has other ideas, including a look at procedures to process low- and high-bail inmates, electronically monitoring some low-bail offenders and increasing resources for inmates with mental-health problems. He also hopes that Frankford’s re-entry program, which helps inmates with their return to society, proves successful so that it can be implemented in other neighborhoods. The program currently is working with more than a dozen soon-to-be-released inmates.
King urges those who have demanded more police on the streets to understand that a larger jail population is a necessary result of more arrests. Currently, only 40 percent of inmates in the prison system have been convicted, he said. The remaining 60 percent are awaiting trial.
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Community reaction to Holmesburg Prison’s temporary reopening has been mixed.
City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski (D-6th dist.) said while she is not thrilled about Holmesburg’s reopening, she’d rather have the inmates there than released onto the streets. She planned to visit the prison this week.
"I think that it’s a problem the D.A., the courts, the elected officials need to get together and come up with a solution for," she said of the overcrowding.
Krajewski said she favors demolishing Holmesburg and building housing. The former alone would require millions of dollars, she said.
"I really don’t think anyone should be housed there since it has been empty for such a long period of time," said Holmesburg resident Bobbie Gunning, vice president of the Upper Holmesburg Civic Association.
Gunning said he understands that the temporary inmates have not been charged with serious crimes. He thinks, however, that Holmesburg Prison should be demolished and converted to a recreation area for activities like skateboarding.
The organization’s treasurer, Fran Lindmar, sees the short-term reopening of the prison as yet another strike against a community that has seen more crime and quality-of-life issues in recent years.
"I feel as though Holmesburg doesn’t have a chance of existing as a safe and clean neighborhood anymore with all that is happening," she said. "It is very frustrating, and one tends to feel helpless in their own back yard. When will it all end?"
Resident Pete Montini does not see a problem with the prison’s short-term use.
"I have an eleven-year-old daughter, and I don’t have a problem with prisoners staying at Holmesburg," he said. "If it can help to relieve some of the overcrowding, then it’s a good thing."
King, the city prisons commissioner, said the prison system does not control the number of people who are sent to jail.
"The public needs to remember that we didn’t ask these inmates to come (to jail)," he said. ••
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com