As holidays approach, Delaware inmates' families distraught about out-of-state moves

Sharon Osborn hasn't been able to touch her son in more than a year.

Derailed by illness and death in her family, she intended to change that this Christmas and visit him in person at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center near Smyrna, where he has spent the past two and a half years.

Now, she doesn't expect to be able to see him Dec. 25.

Joseph Crumpler is one of 330 inmates being moved by the Delaware Department of Correction into Pennsylvania prisons in an attempt to reduce the millions of dollars spent on correctional officer overtime each year.

The transfer process has left Delaware families distraught about how far away their loved ones are headed and largely in the dark about what is to come.

"I had no warning, no idea," Osborn said. "I still have not gotten a call from the prison."

Delaware sending 330 inmates to Pennsylvania at cost of $40,000 per day

The decision to transfer inmates was announced in early November as a "temporary measure" that will span the next two years, with the option of re-upping the contract with Pennsylvania for an additional three after that. 

Department of Correction Commissioner Perry Phelps said the intention is to end the practice sooner by hiring more correctional officers, but that effort has been difficult for the past decade.

Geoff Klopp, president of the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware, said the DOC will need to hire 650 correctional officers in the next three years to be at a safe level. 

In the meantime, Phelps said Delaware prisons are working with officials in Pennsylvania to try and keep inmates within a reasonable distance from Delaware – so, in theory, families won't have to travel much further than they already do to see loved ones.

But with no assurances from Pennsylvania, Phelps can't guarantee where inmates will be placed. 

"Unfortunately, we have to do this," Phelps said last week. "But we don't intend to harm any families in this process. As I said before, we try and cause a minimal amount of pain for everyone involved."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware is hoping to address some of that frustration next week in a public meeting for people with relatives housed at Vaughn who are being moved.

The ACLU has invited members of the Governor's Office; the prison; city, county and state elected officials; and community members to a public forum slated for 4 p.m. Friday at the Achievement Center in Wilmington.

"We feel that the community, especially people with loved ones in prison, they're in an acute state of uncertainty," said ACLU Delaware Executive Director Kathleen MacRae.

The ACLU is sponsoring the meeting in hopes of getting loved ones answers to their questions and a better understanding of the transfer process. 

"From a bigger perspective, what is the state doing to reduce the prison population in Vaughn in other ways?" MacRae asked, adding that the hope is to get some answers to those questions in this public forum.

More barriers to seeing relatives

For those who already struggle to see loved ones while they were in Delaware prison, the added distance is a barrier that will likely limit them from visiting family members.

A search of the PA Inmate Locator shows Crumpler currently at Camp Hill prison, just southwest of Harrisburg.

Osborn had a difficult time making the drive to Vaughn due to her lupus and other health issues. Now, with more than two hours separating her from her son, she's not sure if and when she will be able to make the trip. 

Her son, Joseph Crumpler, has children, too – children that between Osborn and their mothers were able to visit him in at the prison near Smyrna. As will be the case for many families, those visits will be fewer and farther in between with the added distance.

"Because they're (the prison) understaffed, now I have to suffer," Osborn said. "I shouldn't have to suffer."

Nor should his children.

His 20-year-old daughter, Diamond Crumpler, misses her father.

"This is my first time not talking to him, the first time I'm not able to regularly talk to him and call him every day," she said.

When Osborn last called Camp Hill prison Wednesday, a man who answered the phone told her it would take three to four weeks for her son to be processed at the prison and set up his phone call and visitation list.

The two-minute phone call he got after he arrived in Pennsylvania on Tuesday was the first notification Osborn received about his transfer.

Crumpler's processing delay means Osborn might not hear from her son for the best part of a month now.

"We usually talk every day," Osborn said. "This is making me sick."

Jayme Gravell, a spokeswoman with the DOC, confirmed that inmates are provided one phone call to anyone of their choosing when they arrive at their new prison.

"We recognize the value of a strong support system and making sure inmates have access to family members," Gravell said in an email Thursday. "Of the dozens of calls placed to the agency over the past several weeks, no one has requested assistance in facilitating visitation."

Lack of answers leaves families worried

Since the transfers began, The News Journal has received dozens of phone calls from family members whose loved ones were transferred out of state.

Many say they are lacking information about their loved ones' new location or what happened to their personal belongings.

Prison officials said they tried to move inmates based on the remaining time left in their sentence, avoiding those with less than five years yet to serve. It's unclear what other factors were taken into account.

"We try to answer the families' questions," Phelps said. "I don't know what else you can do."

The Delaware Department of Correction said it posted on Tuesday a PDF of eight frequently asked questions regarding the transfer of inmates to Pennsylvania on the DOC's "Locate an Inmate" page. The information is not listed on the DOC's traditional FAQs page.

Families say the answers are rare. 

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Former Wilmington City Councilman Michael A. Brown Sr., whose son is serving a 17-year prison sentence, said he didn't understand why the DOC was moving inmates out of state, depriving them and their families of one another – a perk that helps some inmates stay positive while incarcerated.

His son, Michael A. Brown Jr., was one of the first inmates moved out of Vaughn Correctional Center last month. 

The 43-year-old has since been moved again, this time to a prison in Coal Township, Pennsylvania, which is nearly a three-hour drive from Wilmington, more than an hour north of Harrisburg.

Brown said the most recent move will create a challenge for his family to visit him. “His wife can’t come. It’s just ridiculous.”

Brown said inmates haven’t been allowed to call family members and notify them of the transfers.

“He [usually] has support over the phone, and he talked to his kids twice a week,” Brown said. “But he hasn’t been able to make phone calls yet.”

Brown, who now lives in Florida, said he found out about the initial move when he received a call from his son’s mother telling him that a letter she’d sent to their son had been returned to her the day before Thanksgiving.

"She was frantically saying the letter came back saying ‘inmate unknown,'" Brown recalled. "She was asking me what was going on."

Brown said he started calling around but found no immediate answers.

He found out about his son’s second transfer after he received a letter from his son.

The DOC’s silence has Brown confused.  

Like other inmate family members, Brown said he’s concerned about what the transferred inmates will be able to keep. This includes electronics inmates purchased, money in accounts prisoners can use in the commissary and earned good time that reduce inmates’ stay in prison.

"He had to leave all that stuff behind," Brown said, referring to his 43-year-old’s belongings. "He had money in the books. He had money on his phone card. He doesn’t have any of that stuff."

Instead of spending the $14 million to house inmates in Pennsylvania, Brown said the DOC should use that money to hire more correctional officers, give them better pay and better training to make the prisons safer and better.

"They’re trying to distance themselves from the problem instead of fixing the problem," he said. 

He said he is planning on asking federal attorneys to conduct an inquiry into the matter.

Transfers not new to Delaware prisons

This is not the first mass relocation of Delaware inmates. 

In the spring of 1998, Delaware relocated 300 inmates to Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Virginia, about 30 miles south of Richmond. 

That move was done to relieve crowding at Delaware Correctional Center, now known as James T. Vaughn Correctional Center. The Smyrna-area prison was in the midst of expanding by about 900 beds. 

Virginia agreed to house Delaware inmates for two years at a cost of $13.1 million. The cost of housing the prisoners in Delaware for two years would have been $12.3 million. 

During the initial relocation of 150 inmates, prisoners were told shortly before they were transferred at 4:30 a.m. 

Several relatives and friends of inmates learned of the transfers when they arrived at the Smyrna-area prison on May 30, 1998.

Then-DOC spokesman Anthony Farina said they were considering arranging video teleconferencing and bus trips between Delaware and the prison in Jarratt. It's unknown if they followed through since the DOC did not keep records, according to current DOC spokeswoman Gravell.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Delaware Department of Correction said it posted a FAQ page about the transfer of inmates to Pennsylvania on Tuesday. The document answers eight questions about the transfer process and can be viewed here.

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Contact Brittany Horn at (302) 324-2771 or bhorn@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @brittanyhorn. Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.