Superintendent Wenerowicz- SCI Graterford Prison (cont’d)
“A couple of months ago our inmate population was at 4100 inmates. At that time, 1000 of those inmates we were holding for SCI Camp Hill for classification. Most of our inmates are from the Philadelphia area, they come in with a state sentence. We’ll hold them here temporarily until they are medically cleared to go to Camphill. We’ll screen them and give them a couple of assessments. They usually remain here anywhere between 30 and 60 days and then go to Camp Hill. These inmates don’t get involved in programming until after classification. Then, I have another 1,000 inmates that are parole violators that we are holding for other State Correctional Facilities. I have another 200 inmates who are just here for court for Philadelphia County from other SCIs. Rather than Philadelphia Sheriff driving all the way out to other SCIs in rural areas, They’ll send them here temporarily so the Sheriffs can pick them up from here and take them to court. We also have a 50 bed Capitol case unit. These inmates do not reside in general population. I have a very transient inmate population. I tell a lot of people, that 4100 is very deceiving, I would say over half of them I can’t do anything with, they don’t belong to me, we’re basically just housing those inmates temporarily. It’s that other 2000 inmates that we focus most of our attention on. Of that 2000, 700 are lifers. That’s our stable population, that is the group that keeps this jail safe.”
-Superintendent Wenerowicz- SCI Graterford Prison