Law360 08/19/24: “A federal judge has ordered Philadelphia to set aside $25 million to ramp up recruitment and retention efforts for the city’s Department of Prisons, just over a month after the court found the city in contempt of a settlement in a lawsuit over prison conditions.

U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh ordered the city to set aside money approximately equal to what it had under-spent on its prison budget due to short-staffing since 2020, which would be earmarked for implementing other court-ordered remedial measures aimed at increasing prison staffing, increasing prisoner access to healthcare, and reducing crowding, according to the order issued Friday.

‘As an equitable remedy imposed under this court’s contempt power, the city of Philadelphia is ordered to pay the sum of 25 million dollars into the registry of this court,’ it said. ‘The funds are to be designated for use exclusively to comply with the terms of this order, with the city required to submit periodic reports to the court as to all disbursements.’

The order came in response to the court’s July 12 finding that Philadelphia was in civil contempt for failure to satisfy key components of a 2022 settlement, particularly its requirements for increasing staffing and inmates’ ‘out-of-cell time.’

Philadelphia had entered a settlement in June 2022 stemming from a 2020 class action complaint that had originally claimed that conditions at Philadelphia’s prison facilities were putting inmates at increased risk of COVID-19, while also leaving them locked in their cells for unreasonable amounts of time.

The settlement had called for increased hiring and retention of correctional officers to adequately cover all shifts, but the contempt order said that two years after signing the deal, the city still had not done so.”

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