It now serves as the state's sole diagnostic and classification center for men and houses adult male offenders.

[4] According to a study by the United States Department of Justice released in August 2010, 1.2% of inmates who responded to a survey reported that they had been sexually victimized at the prison.

At the time of the riots, SCI Camp Hill was nearly 45 percent over capacity, with 2,600 inmates in a 52-acre (210,000 m2) complex intended for 1,820.

Senate and House investigations blamed several factors for the riots, including overcrowding, understaffing, a militant group of prisoners, mixing violent and nonviolent inmates, lack of leadership and poor construction.

Some CO's locked themselves into a secure area, but officials said that inmates tore down the walls, beat them, and took eight of them hostage.

Within minutes, inmates set at least five major fires, which destroyed a food service area, the prison hospital, the auditorium of the educational building, a gate house and part of an industrial building where inmates built furniture, roasted coffee beans and put tea into teabags.

In the first round of rioting, inmates removed metal covers over the boxes that controlled the locks of their cells.

Richard Gavin of the Corrections Department pointed out the broken lock-control panels to officials.

Superintendent Freeman met for an hour with six of the inmates who helped negotiate an end to the previous night's siege.

He learned that the inmates' grievances included a rule change barring families from bringing food on visits and complaints of access to health care.

[5] A Corrections Department spokeswoman stated that the prison was under control when officials said it was, at 10 P.M., but guards said that some inmates were loose hours after that.

[8] According to officials, the state police stormed a kitchen area where the most militant inmates were holed up and subdued them.

[11] A lawsuit later by the family of one beaten prisoner, Richard Mayo, said he died seven months later as a result of his injuries and lack of medical care after the beating.

On October 29, Governor Robert P. Casey appointed an independent commission to investigate the riots and bring criminal charges against inmates responsible.

On November 1, Superintendent Freeman was suspended by State Corrections Commissioner, David S. Owens Jr., pending an investigation.