George W. Hill Correctional Facility is a county jail and prison located in

Delaware County, Pennsylvania Delaware County, colloquially referred to as Delco, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With a population of 576,830 as of the 2020 census, it is the fifth-most populous county in Pennsylvania and the third=smallest in area. Del ...

, in the townships of Thornbury and

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

. It has a Thornton postal address, and is within the

Philadelphia metropolitan area Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since 1 ...

. Founded in 1998, the jail was previously managed and operated by Boca Raton, Florida's

GEO Group The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO) is a publicly traded C corporation that invests in private prisons and mental health facilities in North America, Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, the company's ...

until 2009 and was run by West Caldwell, New Jersey based company,

Community Education Centers Community Education Centers, Inc. (abbreviated CEC) was a private corrections company based in West Caldwell, New Jersey that operated residential reentry facilities, jails, and in-prison drug treatment programs in seventeen American states and Berm ...

(CEC). In April 2017, GEO Group completed an acquisition of CEC, regaining management of the prison. Currently, the facility is managed by Delaware County, which took back control of the jail as of April 6, 2022 and generally houses inmates with sentences of two years less one day or a state sentences of five years less one day. The facility was Pennsylvania's last privately operated county jail. The jail occupies fewer than of land on a more than plot of county property.

Controversy

Between 2005 and 2008, at least eight people died when GEO Group-operated the facility. Several of those deaths resulted in lawsuits by family members who said the facility did not provide adequate medical care or proper supervision for offenders. On December 31, 2008, GEO pulled out of operations at this facility, "citing underperformance and frequent litigations" as the reasons. According to the Delaware County Medical Examiner's office six suicides have occurred at George W. Hill since CEC took over operations of the facility in 2009. The prison was reacquired by GEO Group in April 2017, after GEO group completed an acquisition of Community Education Centers.

References

Prisons in Pennsylvania Buildings and structures in Delaware County, Pennsylvania 1998 establishments in Pennsylvania {{prison-stub

Controversy

See also

References