Authorizing City Council's Committee on Public Safety to conduct public hearings to examine and analyze the Community Re-entry process of ex-offenders and persons under authority of the criminal justice system, hear testimony and collect data on related public, private and community based program and policy efforts, so as to determine what actions Council may take to help deliver the resources and support required to operate and promote such programs and policies.

WHEREAS, Incarceration rates in America - an estimated 680 per 100,000, second highest in the world - and the U. S. prison population – now more than 2 million - have experienced massive increases and have reached record levels continuously over the last twenty years, according to numerous studies and reports, resulting in devastating economic and social impact and consequences for millions of individuals and families, hundreds of communities and municipalities, and countless public and private entities; and

WHEREAS, National figures report corrections and associated criminal justice expenditures exceeding $50 billion a year, and in 2003 a record 6.9 million adults in the U.S. were incarcerated, on parole or probation - comprising 3.2 percent of the total population or 1 out of every 32 U. S. citizens, along with a record 4.8 million adults under some form of criminal justice supervision, representing a per annum release rate of more than 774,500 people; and

WHEREAS, Released offenders/prisoners head for and back to a concentrated number of large states, like Pennsylvania, and specific concentrated counties within those states, like Philadelphia, that are already suffering economic and social stress and strain with dwindling budget dollars, and mounting public safety, health, education and employment concerns; and

WHEREAS, These populations are primarily comprised of economically and socially disadvantaged or depressed individuals, the realities are that at midyear 2003 there were 4,834 black male prisoners per 100,000 black males in the United States in prison or jail, compared to 1,778 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males, and 681 white male inmates per 100,000 white males, and the overall rate for males 1,309 per 100,000 and the overall rate for females it is 113 per 100,000 – females totaling approximately 120,000 of those in prisons and 13% of those in the criminal justice systems; and

WHEREAS, Nation-wide more than half of all incarcerated adults and two thirds of all adults involved in criminal justice systems are parents to more than 100 million minor children and over half (58%) of those minor children of incarcerated parents are 10 years of age or under; and

WHEREAS, Conservative estimates report more than 78,000 men and women are incarcerated in Pennsylvania state and county prisons and latest available estimates report the average expenditure for incarceration in the Philadelphia Prison System per person is over $75 a day, with an average head count of over 7600 per day - amounting to nearly $573,000 per day in corrections costs and climbing to an approximate total of $44 million for the average 76.1 day stay of all inmates in the PPS population; and

WHEREAS, When the estimated 35,000 prisoners who are rotating through the Philadelphia Prison System every year are added to the 75 people released by the PPS each day, and that total is combined with the numbers of others already in City communities under correctional constraint or supervision, on any given day we have 51,000 individuals circulating in Philadelphia with active connection to the criminal justice system; and

WHEREAS, These factors and other findings make the mission to establish effective ways and means to facilitate long-term successful re-entry and reintegration of prisoners and offenders into our communities a critical governmental priority; and

WHEREAS, The U.S. Congress has recently allocated approximately $100 million dollars toward re-entry program strategy and development through some 23 governmental departments and agencies, reflecting a national trend in many areas around the country seeking innovative methods for meeting the challenge and reaping the benefits of re-entry program management; and

WHEREAS, The Re-entry Oversight Board and Committee of PPS and the Philadelphia Consensus Group on Re-entry - both groups comprised of over 30 public/private agency and organizational re-entry stakeholders, along with the Philadelphia Prison Society and numerous other groups and programs involved in educational, vocational and other essential social services delivery have all taken initiatives to focus attention, garner advocacy and coordinate efforts around this tremendously important issue;

now therefore

RESOLVED, THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Authorizes Council’s Committee on Public Safety to conduct public hearings to examine and analyze the Community Re-entry process of ex-offenders and persons under authority of the criminal justice system, hear testimony and collect data on related public, private and community based program and policy efforts, so as to determine what actions Council may take to help deliver the resources and support required to operate and promote such programs and policies.

End