NEW FEATURE: Meet Jeff Tweeney

Hey folks, Jeff Deeney here to let you know how this new Twitter project we’re rolling out will work. From now until Philadelphia no longer needs me for cannon fodder in the trenches of the War On Poverty, I will be posting the little overheard snippets of unintentional brilliance and frequently unhinged insanity that comprise the background noise of my work day.  Think of it as Today I Saw for the ADD set; I will bring you the streets in 160 characters or less. All dialogue 100% overheard. You’re already a couple days behind, so start following the Phawker Twitter […]

2008 THE YEAR IN DEENEY: Why I Had To Kill VALLEY OF THE SHADOW Before It Killed Me

The Valley of the Shadow is was an ongoing series documenting how those in Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods publicly mourn and commemorate their dead. Jeff Deeney, the man who brought you Today I Saw, knows these neighborhoods well from his days as a social worker. The hope is was to shine a light on the city’s untouchables, brighten the darkest corners and gather-and-share ultra-vivid and all-too-real stories of loss, grief and remembrance. BY JEFF DEENEY Initially the Valley of the Shadow series was conceived as a documentary effort aimed at exploring the street memorial phenomenon that has become […]

DEENEY: Let Us Now Praise Jill Porter

BY JEFF DEENEY Jill Porter deserves to be spotlighted for her column about Thomas Scatling, which is a refreshingly even handed and well informed take on the man behind the Broad Street subway hammer attack.  Porter focuses on the question of whyScantling was on the streets as opposed to under long term care at a mental health facility despite the fact that he was 302ed, or involuntarily committed, just weeks before the incident. Scantling had a history of violent behavior and was no stranger to the mental health system and the criminal courts.  So why was he on the Broad Street […]

PROPS: ‘Today I Saw’ Deeney In The Pennsylvanian

THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN: Jeff Deeney, a social worker and freelance writer who writes frequently about his work in Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods, also cited housing segregation as a concern. “The poorest parts [of the city] are very isolated socially — they don’t generally butt up against neighborhoods that are thriving.” Deeney also blames a lack of jobs, a broken housing system, and “schools that look and function a lot like correctional facilities” for much of the problem. “People don’t understand what life under the poverty line looks like,” he said. Deeney explained that many single-parent families live on less than $1,600 […]

PAPERBOY: It’s The Deeney, Stupid!

BY AMY Z. QUINN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right — these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. Hey, we know how it is — so many words to read, so little time to surf for free porn. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you, freeing up […]

THE TROUBLE WITH DEENEY: Philadelphia Weekly’s Coverboy Answers His Harshest Critics

BY JEFF DEENEY The Next Mayor blog has a couple substantial posts talking about Showdown on Hurley Street. I would suggest reading them and getting involved in the larger discussion about poverty, crime and violence that’s bound to get louder as the change over to the Nutter administration draws nearer. I figured that the article would spark some strong responses both positive and negative; a lot of what I’ve written has. Let me address some points raised. * Blogger Phil starts out by saying, “An article from today, The Showdown on Hurley Street, struck me as hysteria.” In the larger […]

MILESTONE: Last Great American Novel Turns 20

  HARRY RANSOM CENTER: Twenty years ago, in February of 1996, Little, Brown and Company published David Foster Wallace’s (1962–2008) novel Infinite Jest. It was a bold undertaking for the firm to publish a complex, challenging novel that spans over 1,000 pages and contains hundreds of endnotes, many quite lengthy and all printed in very small type. The sheer size of the book required that it be sold for $30, an unorthodox price for any novel, let alone a second novel by a young, up-and-coming author. Wallace began seriously writing Infinite Jest in 1991. The publication of the book took […]

Five Years Ago I Warned That ‘The Philadelphia Prison System Is Violent, Predatory & Deeply Corrupt,’ Yesterday The Feds Finally Took Action

[Artwork by ALEX FINE] BY JEFF DEENEY Back in the summer of 2011, I wrote about an acquaintance who worked in the The Philadelphia House Of Correction on State Road who was having trouble getting up in the morning and going to work. It seemed like each day brought some unbearable new horror story of violence perpetrated against prisoners by the Corrections Officers (COs) tasked with maintaining order in the facilities. Much of the disorder, the person claimed, on the intensely overcrowded cell blocks was in fact driven by crews of COs that operated like organized crime syndicates. Working with […]

The Philadelphia Prison System Is Violent, Predatory And Deeply Corrupt Because Nobody Is Watching It

[Artwork by FERNANDO BOTERO] EDITOR’S NOTE: The following first posted to Phawker on July 22nd, 2011 BY JEFF DEENEY A couple months ago I was approached by a person in the midst of a major moral dilemma: This person works inside the Philadelphia Prison System, and claimed to have been witness to massive, systematic and ongoing abuses inside the institution. This person described the common practice among Correctional Officers (COs) of ganging up on troublesome prisoners in their cells and dishing brutal beatdowns to put them in line. The person described an incident where a prisoner was tied to a […]

BOOKS: Infinite Guest

Artwork by TOMMASO PINCIO If David Foster Wallace were alive today, would the famously introverted author be flattered to see himself on the big screen, or horrified at the commodification of his very identity? James Ponsoldt’s new film The End of the Tour recreates five days that the late author David Foster Wallace spent traveling around the Midwest with Rolling Stone Magazine writer David Lipsky around 1996, shortly after Wallace’s critically acclaimed novel Infinite Jest was published. In the film, the two men have a number of philosophical conversations about writing, life, sex, and fame — kind of like if […]

What’s Funny About Police, Love & Understanding?

Illustration by ALEX FINE JEFF DEENEY FOR THE MARSHALL PROJECT: As a social worker, I’ve always been conflicted about the fact that I work in a law enforcement setting. My desk is situated among probation officers (POs), typically in baby blue polo style shirts with “PROBATION” written across the back. Officers from the court system’s warrant squad come and go, dressed in black commando gear, pants tucked into their boots so they don’t trip when they run (they’re basically always running after people.) I see guns in the office, all the time. It’s a controlled environment; people are searched on […]

THIS IS OUR MUSIC: Our Favorite Albums Of 2014

  We said it before and we’ll say it again: Quoth the Chairman Of The Board, it was a very good year. So was last year, and the one before that and the one before that and so on. Why? Mostly, we can thank the disruptive, game-eating power of the Internet. The best thing that ever happened to music was the web-abetted collapse of the music industry’s one-size-fit-most paradigm and the death of radio as the prime determinant of what people like. Now people find music everywhere, it literally rains out of everything with an electric pulse, which has triggered […]

A TALE OF TWO DELINQUENCIES: The Deadly Double Standard Of Racial Justice In America

Via Twitter/photographer unknown BY JEFF DEENEY I grew up in suburban Philadelphia in the 80s. It was a time when working class families were leaving their row homes in a city they considered increasingly black and dangerous in droves for single houses on tree lined streets in nearly all white townships not far away, maybe ten miles, but in many ways worlds apart. By 1985, when the bomb dropped on the MOVE house and it seemed like Philly was death spiraling into apocalypse my parents watched the chaos over dinner in Delaware County marveling at what good fortune we had […]