By Dan Belson
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Monday that the state would close a Jessup prison by next summer due to “substantial capital costs” required to rehabilitate the ailing facility.
The cost of repairs at the Maryland Correctional Institution – Jessup would exceed $200 million, the state’s public safety and corrections secretary, Carolyn J. Scruggs, wrote in a memo to Moore recommending a closure plan. The facility is “well past its functional lifespan,” Scruggs wrote, and has a foundation that is “sinking into the earth due to substantial water penetration.” That “continued degradation,” coupled with the need for an expensive electrical upgrade, make up the main reasons for the closure.
A Monday news release from Moore’s office says the facility houses more than 700 people and is authorized for over 300 staff positions. They will be transferred to other facilities, according to the governor’s office.
The facility, which opened in 1981, “has long outrun its facility lifespan and we refuse to kick the can further down the road,” Moore said in a statement.
The prison’s closure comes over a decade after the state demolished the Maryland House of Correction and closed the Baltimore City Detention Center — two aging, 19th century facilities notorious for violence and corruption. The latter of those facilities is planned to be replaced by the proposed Baltimore Therapeutic Treatment Center, which is expected to cost $1 billion to build.
The Maryland Correctional Institution – Jessup, abbreviated as MCI-J, is much newer than the two demolished facilities. But the medium-security prison, not to be confused with the nearby Jessup Correctional Institution, has seen its fair share of violence.
Prosecutors accused 20 employees inmates of operating a drug smuggling ring in the prison, indicting them in 2019 on racketeering charges. One of them, a lieutenant, pleaded guilty to federal charges for sexually assaulting inmates. The prison has also seen various stabbings, including a triple stabbing in 2014 and another attack that wounded an inmate in 2021.
MCI-J also has become expensive to keep in good repair. The governor’s office blamed the building’s degradation on “prolonged underinvestment in routine and preventive maintenance” that has led to foundation issues and drainage problems. The facility’s plumbing, electrical systems and roofing are “past life cycle expectancy,” according to a Maryland Department of General Services assessment.
As far as staffing, the state estimated that closing MCI-J will save $19.2 million in overtime, according to Scruggs’ letter.
After staff and prisoners are transferred out, the facility will be closed and winterized, at an estimated cost of $1.5 million, the governor’s office said.
The Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, the Dorsey Run Correctional Facility and the Patuxent Institution also are located in Jessup. The state intends to relocate MCI-J employees to other facilities, including the women’s prison and Dorsey Run, according to the governor’s office. The facility’s population will be relocated “over a period of several months” to other prisons “depending on incarcerated individuals’ security needs.”
The union representing state employees, including prison workers, was critical of Moore’s administration for moving toward a closure of the prison without a “larger and more comprehensive plan” for the state’s correctional facilities.
AFSCME Council 3 President Patrick Moran said in a statement that his union had asked the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services for reports on the facilities for months but has “yet to receive anything.”
“There are also larger questions about how the proposed Baltimore Therapeutic Treatment Center falls into this picture,” he said, noting that the $1 billion price tag was far more than the cost of modernizing MCI-J.
He said that to ensure safety at the facilities, the state needs to keep a sufficient amount of staff and resources, and “address the sky-high rates of violence and overtime in these facilities.”
The union is “ready to question the lack of a comprehensive plan” at required public hearings for the prison’s closure, Moran said.
Maryland State Public Defender Natasha Dartigue said in a statement that the closure risks causing “significant disruption to educational and vocational programs that are essential to rehabilitation and public safety.” She said that prisoners being transferred to distant facilities “will complicate reentry planning, employment preparation, and will place severe burdens on families maintaining visitation,” which has proven “critical to reducing recidivism.”
Retired Anne Arundel Circuit Court Judge Philip T. Caroom, now a member of the Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform, said in an email that Moore’s administration deserves “a lot of credit for making a good call” in shutting down the facility, which he called “outdated and expensive.”
He said that relocating staff can help solve understaffing at other prisons in the state, and that other resources “can do even more to make the whole system work better: DPSCS could invest in well-known programs and training that can reduce assaults and expand mentoring, education and job training.”
“All these things would make our communities safer when incarcerated Marylanders return to our communities after they’ve done their time.”
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