Pennsylvania Bungles Management at George W. Hill Prison after Taking Back Control from GEO Group
by Michael Dean Thompson
When Delaware County, Pennsylvania, took over the George W. Hill Correctional Facility (GWH) in April 2022, it ended nearly three decades of management by private prison giant The GEO Group, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Dec. 2022, p.32.]
Democratic candidates for the County Commission campaigned on de-privatizing the prison in 2019 before winning a majority of seats on the County Commission and making good on the campaign promise. At the time, according to Broad + Liberty, a county spokesperson said that the primary issue was recidivism: “Currently over six out of ten inmates at GWH have been there before. We can do better. And doing better would mean a reduction in the cost to the taxpayer.”
In the few years since, however, the annual recidivism rate has remained between 63% and 65%. But a nonprofit watchdog group, the Pennsylvania Prison Society (PPS), maintains that conditions have improved relative to the GEO era, according to Monitoring Director Noah Barth.
The PPS has been permitted to perform five walk-through inspections of the jail since 2021. Importantly, the walkthroughs rely on voluntary respondents and small and inconsistent sample sizes, both of which can bias results. Likewise, the 2021 walkthrough was the only one during GEO’s control of the prison, giving little against which a comparison could be derived.
There were also questions which were not asked when GEO had control. For example, whether there is insufficient food was not asked on the first visit. The nature of some other questions apparently changed, especially one question about staff assaults. Nevertheless, the number of those who reported witnessing a staff assault nearly doubled between the 2022 and 2025 interviews. In addition, women report often being completely unable to access feminine hygiene products, and even being told to “flip over” used menstrual pads for reuse.
The PPS said that the most critical continuing issue involves staffing. But the county’s Jail Oversight Board (JOB) abruptly ended public reporting of staffing levels. Security concerns and the sensitive nature of personnel matters were cited as reasons for the sudden silence. During GEO’s tenure, by contrast, staffing was reported at every JOB meeting. What has been reported since, in August 2022, is that the county allocated $1 million to a recruiting firm to fill empty positions while also raising starting pay from $14.50 an hour to $22.
Under GEO’s management, the county’s consultants identified extremely high staff turnover rates as a key problem. According to the PPS, the turnover problem is getting worse. To address it, the county has replaced a warden, after 500 staff members signed a union vote of no confidence. Guard complaints about the former warden, including a sergeant’s resignation letter describing an “ethos of retaliation,” caused a state senator to make an unannounced visit. The new warden, Willie Bonds, has acknowledged the staffing problem but also said the facility budget, which has increased 13% since 2024, does not allow for full staffing.
Source: Broad + Liberty
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