A former community leader says he has been starved, stabbed, denied medical care and "continually harassed" in the Baltimore City Detention Center, where he is being held as he awaits trial on murder charges.
Cleaven L. Williams Jr. has filed a federal lawsuit against the BCDC warden in Baltimore's U.S. District Court and outlined changes he wants made, including the implementation of a "zero tolerance policy" toward inmate infractions.
"I have been incarcerated now for almost 2 years, and have been through/endured a plethora of violations to my person and my rights," Williams wrote in a letter sent to The Baltimore Sun this week.
Williams is accused of killing his wife outside a Baltimore courthouse moments after she received a protective order against him in November 2008.
But his accusations, when combined with others, underscore existing concerns about life behind bars. Williams claims that some correctional officers within the jail are either complicit in the crimes against him or complacent, and that their "assistance/negligence" led to his stabbing.
This month, a Maryland correctional officer was arrested on federal charges that she aided gang members in prison, smuggling drugs for them and allowing the inmates to carry out beatings. And this week, a 21-year-old inmate was sent to Maryland Shock Trauma Center after he was beaten in the shower area of the Jessup Correctional Institution.
"I would be terrified to be in prison. It's not safe. You have issues with staff corruption and also just protecting prisoners from other prisoners," said Wendy Hess, an attorney with the Public Justice Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy group working to improve prisoner health care and confinement conditions.
Williams himself is accused of being dangerous. He allegedly shot a man in 2003 and pistol-whipped his wife in 2005. He is charged with killing her in 2008, leaving their three children motherless.
Williams, a former president of the Greater Greenmount Community Association, is scheduled for trial next month, though it could be postponed. He fired his lawyer this week, according to the city state's attorney's office, and there's no record or anyone else representing him.
In a letter written to a federal judge earlier this year, Williams said he's not proud of the reason for his incarceration, and he's not looking for special treatment.
"I am a man living for contrition in my heart and am just looking for fairness and consideration," he wrote, asking the judge to review documents "attesting to [his] struggle with BCDC administration."
In a 21-page federal court filing, Williams said there are serious safety issues within the pre-trial detention complexes. He also said he has tried to remedy situations through the proper channels, but hasn't been able to get relief.
He compares his experiences to those of Tashma McFadden, another inmate whose 2008 lawsuit exposed a connection between guards and gangs that was investigated by the City Paper. That lawsuit inspired him to file his own.
His court filing says "young females" guard most of the facility, and they cause the most problems. He claims there are dozens of inmates per correctional officer in some sections.
"What typically happens on these sections is the officer's [sic] succumb to the wills and pressure of the so called leaders or strongest group or gang in the section. Thus, relinquishing their authority," Williams wrote in his court filing.
He said he was stabbed during a shift "with only one female [correctional officer] working who was maybe 21 and absolutely did not follow any protocol."
Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services spokesman, Rick Binetti, questioned the credibility of Williams' claims, including the staffing ratio.
BCDC has one correctional officer for every three detainees, Binetti said, and a new commissioner has significantly tightened the reins there this year, leading some inmates to complain they're being mistreated because they're being denied visits or shampoo.
Overall, serious assaults — those requiring medical attention — in detention facilities are down as well, Binetti said.
From July 2009 through June of this year, there were 156 serious assaults on Maryland inmates and pre-trial detainees. That's about half of 1 percent of the prison population, which consists of 23,000 inmates and an average of 4,000 detainees at any given time.
And though the figure is up slightly from the previous year, it is still well below the numbers that were seen two, three and four years ago, which were all in the 200s, Binetti said.
"I think it shows that the efforts that we've made on security and contraband interdiction and gang intelligence are really working," he said.
