Correctional Institution

In a move to improve security at Maryland correctional institutions, inmates serving life terms who have an escape history have been transferred to more secure facilities.As of July 28, said Commissioner of Correction William W. Sondervan, 52 of 73 inmates whose records were reviewed have been transferred to the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup, the Roxbury Correctional Institution at Hagerstown or the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland.The action followed the recent escape of two inmates from the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup, Sondervan said.

An armed robber and his prison psychologist paramour are being investigated in a series of alleged mail order schemes through an Annapolis post office box, state police said.Fliers detailing the operation were found at the home of psychologist Elizabeth L. Feil, who is being investigated to determine whether she aided in the escape of her former patient, Byron Smoot, from Maryland Correctional Institution -- Jessup. Shoe boxes filled with correspondence between Feil and other inmates were discovered by her husband, Glenn Bosshard, at their Annapolis home and turned over to police.

State correctional officials plan to reduce the inmate population at the Maryland House of Correction Annex in Jessup from 1,800 to 1,200 after a melee there in May raised concerns about crowding and safety."

After more than a decade under federal court supervision, four of Maryland's oldest prisons have been freed from consent decrees governing their populations and conditions, prompting concern from inmate advocates yesterday.The termination of the decrees is part of a national pattern after passage in Congress of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which restricts the extent to which federal courts can intervene in the management of state prisons.The act provides for "immediate" termination of consent decrees considered to be overly broad.

PERHAPS IT WAS only an oversight that a jail shift commander was hired by Howard County Detention Center officials without first being certified for employment by the state. But the jail's director, James N. Rollins, has to accept blame for that. Responsibility for the error cannot be shifted to state corrections officials, who did not discover the transgression while conducting an audit of the facility last summer.Mr. Rollins would have the public believe his past friendship with Capt. Thomas V. Kimball had nothing to do with his hiring him in 1994 without requiring the necessary certification.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Some prison inmates spend their days behind bars pumping iron.Daniel Naple attempted to pump $800,000 out of the Internal Revenue Service while paying his debt to society. Now he could get as much as 10 more years in the Big House.Naple, 43, of Savannah, Ga., was one of three men charged with operating what prosecutors say was a massive income tax fraud that was run, in part, from the law library at the Glades Correctional Institution in Belle Glade.The prison-based scam operated in 1989 and 1990 with the cooperation of hundreds of inmates at three different Florida prisons.

The candles burned brightly on the altar as the 15 Lutheran worshipers lowered their heads and prayed. After a unanimous amen, the men's heads straightened and they began to read the Bible and sing "Jesus, Remember Me.""The theme for this evening kind of picks up from last week when Jesus announced to the world that he was the bread of life," the Rev. Charles Robert Frederick told the men. "When God fills us with his spirit, we have new purpose for our lives."The Lutheran pastor's sermon and the chapel's decorations resembled many other churches.

The first test results for tuberculosis at the Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown show that about a third of 550 inmates and 10 percent of the prison staff tested positive for the disease, the warden said last night.The number of inmates who tested positive for the disease is about twice the number released earlier by the Maryland Division of Correction, before additional test results became available.Roxbury Warden Jon P. Galley also said an inmate with an active case of tuberculosis who is suspected of exposing other inmates to the disease has a strain of tuberculosis that is resistant to two drugs.

The first tests for tuberculosis at the Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown show that about a third of 550 inmates and 10 percent of the prison staff tested positive for the disease, the warden said.The number of inmates who tested positive for the disease is about twice the number announced earlier by the Maryland Division of Correction, before additional test results became available.Roxbury Warden Jon P. Galley also said an inmate with an active case of tuberculosis who is suspected of exposing other inmates to the disease has a strain of tuberculosis that is resistant to two drugs.

Take a peek inside the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup, home of too many inmates and too few guards.Behind the fences and razor wire, inmates are jammed in two-man cells so narrow the warden can spread his arms and touch both walls. Others live in the gym, where 90 bunk beds take up half the basketball court. The wing where the men used to learn trades is deserted. Classrooms are often empty.Most teachers and social workers are gone, as are all of the recreation workers and drug treatment counselors.

The inmate claims officers at the Maryland Correctional Institute at Hagerstown tortured him physically and mentally, and then denied him the medication he needed to lower his high blood pressure. "I am writing because I am going through racial cruel and unusual punishment," Michael Vaughn wrote in a letter postmarked July 2. "Since I've been on J-1 [a disciplinary segregation section of the prison] I've been called [racial and other epithets]. I've been choked unconscious with handcuffs on, I've had my meals took for five days, I've had a plastic shield in front of my cell which blocks air from coming in my cell."

While awaiting trial nearly three years ago, Raymond Smoot was beaten to death by correctional officers at Baltimore's Central Booking and Intake Facility. His death prompted an FBI investigation, City Council hearings and a bill to create a prison violence task force. But three years after cries of "never again," the task force has not yet convened, and recent reports suggest that Maryland's prisons inflict punishments beyond what any judge or jury might imagine. It's time to take meaningful steps to shine the light of public scrutiny on Maryland's jails and prisons.

Not since guards beat three inmates in the decrepit south wing of the old Maryland Penitentiary in 1981 have assaults on prisoners generated so much attention. Then, the beatings and a cover-up led to an investigation by the attorney general of Maryland and a scathing indictment of prison conditions. Now, inmate beatings at two Western Maryland prisons have resulted in the firing of 25 officers and a continuing state police probe. Public Safety Secretary Gary D. Maynard acted swiftly to clean house, but the investigation needs to go as far as it can to ensure the safety of prisoners and officers.

With 25 correctional officers facing termination or already fired, a probe that began last month into whether they beat inmates at two Western Maryland prisons has grown into one of the most extensive investigations in years for the state penal system. Detectives are working with state police and local prosecutors investigating several encounters between inmates and officers in early March at the Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown and the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland.

Nine correctional officers at a medium-security prison in Hagerstown were fired yesterday amid allegations that they assaulted an inmate last month, according to a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. The nine officers, who worked at the Roxbury Correctional Institution, plan to appeal the decision, according to the union representing correctional officers in the state of Maryland. "These mass firings are a reckless rush to judgment on the state's part," said Joe Lawrence, spokesman for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

State prison officials said yesterday they have launched a criminal investigation into allegations that eight correctional officers assaulted several inmates at a maximum-security prison - the second case of possible abuse to emerge at a Western Maryland prison this month. The officers from the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland have been placed on administrative leave and face possible termination, prison officials said yesterday. The Maryland State Police are leading a criminal inquiry into the case, prison authorities said.

A man serving multiple life sentences for killing four people, including two pregnant women, in Baltimore County in 1987 tried to escape early yesterday from a maximum-security prison in Jessup but was caught by correctional officers as he tried to scale a fence, according to prison officials. Rico Marzano, who turned 40 Saturday, ran from a building at the Jessup Correctional Institution about 5 a.m. He tried to climb a security fence, which is topped with razor wire, corrections officials said.

Cresaptown -- Amid the scenic mountains of Western Maryland looms a forbidding fortress of a prison designed with one goal in mind - keeping the state's most violent and disruptive criminals inside, and under complete control. North Branch Correctional Institution, a state-of-the-art maximum-security prison just south of Cumberland, has been opening in phases since 2003 and will double in size to hold up to 1,400 inmates when two more housing units open next year. The high-tech prison - which will cost $171 million when completed - is taking inmates from aging facilities such as the House of Correction in Jessup, which was shut down in March after months of relentless violence.

The publication, sent to an inmate at the Eastern Correctional Institution, includes a cartoon of a black woman drawn to resemble an ape. Next to her, a white man in a suit makes a racist remark about her hair. One look at it and the prison's warden instituted a ban on the monthly newsletter, which is produced by the Nationalist Movement, a white supremacist group based in Learned, Miss. "You have a very diverse population behind prison walls and, if this were to get out, it could pose some sort of a security issue, if people get their feathers ruffled over it," said Rosa Cruz, a spokeswoman for the prison system.

After an Air Force base in Maryland stopped ordering Viagra in 2005, Lawrence Williams spotted an opportunity. The former civilian employee at Andrews Air Force Base continued to order the drug used for erectile dysfunction on behalf of the military and resold the pills for personal profit. In Greenbelt, U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow on Monday sentenced Williams, 48, of District Heights, to six months in prison, followed by five months of electronic home monitoring and three years of supervised release for stealing at least 100 bottles of Viagra from the military.