The emails also purportedly show that anyone seeking employment in the department must first register as a Republican.
“Just make sure he registers as a [redacted] before applying. They’re extremely strict about that,” a supervisor allegedly wrote to other high-ranking officials in the email.
County Council members said they were caught off guard by the revelations and they plan a vigorous investigation.
“We’ll be speaking with the county’s executive director [on May 29] to begin to investigate this matter,” Councilman Brian Zidek told NNPA Newswire.
Zidek said he hadn’t previously been made aware of what went on.
“But if true, this is shocking and obviously unacceptable,” said Zidek, who added that he spoke with Councilman Kevin Madden who also hadn’t been briefed about the matter.
Original Media Group (which publishes the Philadelphia-based, student-led news website YC News) said it obtained an email message sent in 2015 between several county officials and a current department supervisor where they accidentally carbon-copied a probationer.
Original Media Group then filed nearly 50 Right to Know Law Requests.
The company said the chain of emails appeared to point to an individual who intended to apply for a position within the probation department.
Currently, the Delaware County Department of Adult Probation and Parole doesn’t employ an African American and only one percent of the county’s District Attorney’s Office is comprised of African Americans.
In the email chain, the job applicant also was told that he/she didn’t have to be concerned with security as long as African Americans lived in the county.
“Good morning,” an unidentified high-ranking Delaware County Adult Probation & Parole Supervisor wrote in one of the e-mails that was shared with at least three other county officials and third parties, according to Original Media Group.
“You do not have to worry about job security …ROFL…so long as there’s a [n—-r] in our county, you will have a full slate,” the supervisor wrote.
Delaware County is approximately 22 miles outside of Philadelphia and counts as the fifth most populous county in Pennsylvania.
Of the more than 561,000 residents in the county, about 20% are African Americans, according to the most recent Census.
Chester, the largest city in Delaware County, routinely ranks among the most dangerous American cities with a high violent crime rate, a fact that didn’t appear lost on probation officials reportedly involved in the emails.
“Can’t have a bunch of [gang-bang] loving [redacted] in here … ha,” the supervisor wrote.
Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland and Probation officials have declined to comment.
The contents of the emails are disturbing on many levels, Attorney and CEO, David Reischer told NNPA Newswire.
“The emergence of these racially charged emails among high ranking prison officials merely makes explicit what many people already know about the ‘prison industrial complex’ in America,” Reischer said.
“Namely, that the mass incarceration of disproportionate number of Black men in America is a structural mechanism to that promotes institutional racism in our society,” he said.
Reischer added that the “structural similarities of racism in our prisons merely mirror the structural racism that exists within the broader society in America and fueling further inequality by allowing unfit and racist persons to control and abuse the prison population.”
