By JP Phillips
Contributing Writer

During outdoor recreation time on Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 3, Chester County Prison inmate Thomas Hackett climbed one of the exercise yard fences, scrambled through layers of razor wire and ended up on the roof.  He jumped to the ground with the intention of climbing the perimeter fence to freedom.  He was spotted when a correction officer noticed others in the yard looking up as Hackett struggled to get through the razor wire.  Officers quickly apprehended Hackett, who never got close to breaching the prison grounds. Crisis averted.

It’s been two years since Danilo Cavalcante escaped and traumatized the residents of Chester County for two weeks before he was apprehended. Since then, the prison has spent almost $10 million for capital upgrades to ensure the facility is updated and secure. But the question remains—are we safe?

On Tuesday—one day prior to the attempted prison break—the Chester County Press met with Warden Howard Holland, Prison Captain Scott Boettlin, and County Commissioner and Prison Board Chair Josh Maxwell to discuss this very question.

Back on August 31, 2023—the day that Cavalcante escaped—the prison had significant problems with both security and infrastructure.   According to the prison’s website, the last major renovations took place 40 years prior.  When asked about this, Boettlin, who has worked at the prison for 29 years, said, “Well, we had the addition put on in '07, but that’s about it. Yeah, you're probably spot on.”  

For the past two years, efforts have been made to make up for lost time.  As reported in the Sept. 2, 2024 edition of the Chester County Press, the year-one improvements included: security mesh and razor wire to close off the area between alleyway walls where Cavalcante got onto the roof; more roof and fence razor wire; bright, distinctive clothing to differentiate prisoners based on threat levels; new internet cables and cameras (both motion-detectors and stationary); replacement of an antiquated gate and door operating system with logic controllers; body scanners; X-ray machines at entry points; a mail scanner to keep weapons and other contraband out.  Infrastructure improvements included: new roofing; updated air handling systems; new water heaters; a renovated gym; renovated employee locker rooms and other areas.

Improving communications with the community and other prison professionals is an ongoing focus. 

“We’ve also focused on building relationships with our partners and other facilities, both state correctional, federal, local, because if whatever’s impacting them at their levels, if we're not feeling it yet, we will, or vice versa,” Holland said.  He presents a report at Pocopson Township every three months before their regularly scheduled commissioners meeting and updates the public on prison developments and improvements.

The perimeter detection system for the prison is now mostly installed, and will be completed by November.  

“If anybody hits that fence, there’s going to be a camera that goes right to it,” explained Holland. A staff of camera monitors and perimeter officers will then see the issue and determine if it is a concern.  Microwaves cross roadways to monitor anything entering or leaving the grounds.   “Perimeter officers have tablets with them now that they can pull up immediately in the car to see where there was a detection,” Holland continued.  “They can also see if something is happening inside the prison walls.”

Card readers are installed which allow employees access to only the areas for which they are authorized. It will be fully operational by the end of September.

Three canines—Uno, Banks, and Nugget—now help patrol the prison in shifts. “The dogs can detect either electronic cell phones or those things like drugs, bombs, or gunpowder,” Holland said. “Sometimes there’s planned searches that we know about, and then sometimes if, let’s say, we’re doing a search or we get information that, there's a shank (improvised weapon) or something on one of the blocks, then we'll lead that.”  

The dogs are also available to help in the community if they are needed—they could help find a missing person, for example.  “Two of my correction officers are also sworn in as deputy sheriffs, which means when they’re out in the field, they have the same enforcement powers and law enforce authority as a sheriff,” Holland said.

Drones were recently added as a reconnaissance tool.  “We actually have been training once a week now,” Howard explained. “We have random officers that are selected to go out there. They'll take it up; they'll fly the perimeter. Eventually, we want to get to the point that we can have drones that are set up to autonomously just fly at random times around the facility when we have people out in the yard work release center.”

Filling Correctional Officer 1 (prison guard) vacancies is a continuing problem. When Cavalcante escaped, there were 55 vacancies.  As of July 2025, there were 67.  Holland felt that this number is slightly misleading, as some of those officers were promoted and the lower-level positions haven’t yet been filled.  Holland noted that summer is a difficult time for hiring.  He and Maxwell emphasized that better working conditions and training programs have been instituted over the last two years.  Additionally, they said, prisoners are treated better and have more opportunities to learn trades and educate themselves so they can be contributing members of society—all adding up to a better, although still challenging, workplace.  Holland said that prison guard vacancies are not unique to Chester County Prison--it is an industry-wide problem.

As last week’s escape attempt made crystal clear, there might always be someone determined to escape and willing to take their chances with razor wire and getting caught, or die while trying to escape.  

The big missing piece of the security plan is the proposed security mesh roof that would enclose all of the exercise yards.  This was agreed to by the Prison Board in a community meeting in Sep 2023 just after Cavalcante’s escape, but the original design had to be scrapped due to the constitutional requirement that prisoners need to be exposed to natural sunlight for part of the day.  A new design was put out for bid in Feb 2025, but was deemed too expensive.  Currently, the yards are surrounded by walls and/or chain link fences topped with razor wire.   The proposed fences would be 16 feet high: the lower eight feet composed of regular chain link fencing, and the upper eight feet made of anti-climb fence where the holes are too small to insert fingers to grab onto it.  Then the area would be totally roofed by chain link fencing.  Besides keeping prisoners in, it would also keep weapons and contraband, attached to drones, out.  “Drugs and everything else get flown in and dropped into the yard,” Howard said.  They are also looking to add an intercept drone.   “Once we know that something is in our air space, we have the authority to go eventually and take that out… It's not just an escape portion. It's everything else that that mitigates or eliminates for us, especially contraband coming into the facility.”  

Holland is currently having discussions with contractors about the anti-climb fence and fence-roof enclosures for all yards, and is expected to recommend a vendor to the Prison Board shortly.  Construction is targeted to begin later this year or early in 2026.  

Which brings us back to the initial question: Are we safe? 

“I think the public’s safer, and I think the COs (Correction Officers) are safer here because we're treating our inmates better,” Holland said.  “If we can reduce the time to get canines here, get drones in there and everything else, it actually shrinks potentially anything from happening. Or being protracted more than it has to be. So, the more we train with it, the more we prepare for that, for some reason, this seems like it's less likely to happen because we're trained in that direction. So our big mantra out here is, we train hard to fight easy.”

“I think we're much safer,” Maxwell said. “The idea is you are always looking for the next thing. So, we want to stay hungry. Hungry dogs hunt…and we want to be hungry dogs here and make sure that we’re looking for the next thing. Drones are the next thing.  Drugs are the next thing.  So, we always want to be safer—99 percent is not good enough.”