Closing of Baltimore detention center marks a milestone

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – An announcement by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan that he is closing the Baltimore City Detention Center marked a milestone in long-standing problems with the state’s dangerously decrepit correctional facilities. People were getting bit by spiders.

Hogan said that jail employees either stood by or enabled the criminal enterprise, which he said ranks as “one of the biggest failures in leadership in the history of Maryland”.

Hogan on Thursday called it the worst prison in the United States and a “black eye” for the state of Maryland.

Hogan piled derision piled on top of criticism: “Dangerous not only for workers, but the individuals housed here”, “structurally unfit”, “a disgrace and its conditions are horrendous”, “shameful”, “a disaster”, “an embarrassment”, “literally falling apart”.

John Cox, president and CEO of Safety Operating Systems and a former accident investigator, said minute characteristics of the metal could indicate attitude and vertical speed of the aircraft when it impacted. About 750 are expected to be moved, because other buildings in the complex could accommodate some, said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Corrections. One man shouted, “Help me, help me”, prompting guards to rush over to quiet him.

“The practice of continuously dumping hard-earned taxpayer money into this disastrous facility will not continue under my watch”, Hogan said in a press conference held outside the prison Thursday afternoon.

The building, which predates the Civil War, has long been considered unsafe because of its crumbling structure and squalid living conditions. James Ed DeGrange, D-Anne Arundel, and Guy Guzzone, D-Howard.

“Consistently, the governor has circumvented the Legislature rather than working together to find bipartisan and consensus-driven solutions”, said Sen.

Hogan added that the facility will never be used as a jail again, and there are plans to tear it down.

Corrections experts who followed the scandal said such prosecutions can only do so much.

State troopers took Robert Crissman into custody about 26 hours after authorities said he walked away from a work-release program at a jail about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, where he was serving time for a probation violation. But it wasn’t told about the plan till Thursday morning.

“It’s going to be a nail-biting weekend but we can not rush it”, said Gomes, of Kuala Lumpur.

David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project, said closing the facility would be a positive step, though he expressed concern about how hundreds of inmates would be transferred.

The governor’s office said in a statement that the transition will “not negatively impact detainees’ access to legal visits, and will give them a safer environment to await trial and court hearings”.

During this year’s General Assembly session, some Republican lawmakers advocated returning control of the jail – and the cost of maintaining it -to the city.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Justice Center, an activist group, asked a federal judge last month to reopen a lawsuit against Maryland over conditions at the jail. They’re not sure for now.

“This facility should have been closed years ago”, Hogan repeated.