Correctional Services

Youth Services International Inc. surprised investors yesterday by warning of another quarterly loss and telling shareholders they'll receive less than expected in the company's merger with Correctional Services Corp.Under a revised formula, Correctional Services would pay about $35.3 million in stock for Owings Mills-based Youth Services, down from $48.1 million under terms announced in September.It was another blow for the struggling juvenile corrections company, which only a year ago had a stock market value of about $200 million.

Nineteen inmates -- most of them serving life terms for murder -- were removed from the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup and three correctional officers flunked preliminary drug tests in a surprise sweep of the maximum-security prison that began before dawn yesterday.Nearly 300 correctional officers, state police and police dog teams moved into the prison complex before dawn in what a prison system spokesman termed a combination crackdown and training exercise financed in part by a $475,000 federal grant.

Private prison operators want a chance to build and run a women's prison at Jessup, corporate executives told a House committee yesterday.Officers from four companies said they run prisons around the country, saving states as much as 15 percent, offering better buildings and programs and still earning a profit."

In a July 18 article, The Sun incorrectly reported the name of the state agency involved in a contract dispute with PHP Health Care Corp. The controversy involves the Department of Public ++ Safety and Correctional Services.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 8/07/98

Private prison operators want a chance to build and run a women's prison at Jessup, corporate executives told a House committee yesterday.Officers from four companies said they run prisons around the country, saving states as much as 15 percent, offering better buildings and programs and still earning a profit."

Youth Services International Inc., the Owings Mills-based operator of juvenile-offender facilities that is in the process of being acquired by a Florida company, yesterday reported a sharp drop in third-quarter revenue and a net loss of $3.4 million.The company said results were negatively impacted by losses and costs of about $2.8 million related to the closing of its behavioral health program in College Station, Texas.The loss in the three months that ended Sept. 30 was equal to 30 cents a share.

Private prison operators want a chance to build and run a women's prison at Jessup, corporate executives told a House committee yesterday.Officers of four companies said they run prisons around the country, saving states as much as 15 percent, offering better buildings and programs and still earning a profit."

Angelina Griffin thought that having her husband arrested would save his life. Instead, Daniel Griffin died alone, sprawled on the floor of a holding cell -- even though a doctor reportedly had twice ordered treatment that might have kept him alive.A correctional major suspected of disregarding the doctor has been placed on administrative leave while the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services investigates. Meanwhile, the family of a man they say had never been arrested before is demanding answers to the questions that linger about his death.

A state administrative hearings judge has ordered officials to lift the suspension of correctional officer Candace Mayo after ruling that she was an unwilling participant in "horseplaying" with two superiors at the Maryland Penitentiary.Personnel officials with the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services received the order yesterday and were reviewing it, said David Towers, an agency spokesman. The department is permitted to appeal the judge's decision.The state failed to prove that Mayo willingly allowed both of her hands to be cuffed and have water flicked in her face during the July 29 incident, said Ann C. Kehinde, administrative law judge for the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings, in a 25-page decision Tuesday.

State officials have told the Justice Department that they stand by practices at Maryland's Supermax prison, despite a federal investigation that concluded the prison violates the civil rights of inmates.The state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services was responding to a May 1 letter from Deval L. Patrick, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who charged that the investigation found Supermax was operating unconstitutionally. Patrick said that if the state did not respond within 49 days, it could be sued for the alleged violations, which included "grossly deficient" mental health services and inadequate access to exercise and medical care.

Eight people who worked at the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown have filed a $40 million lawsuit against nine colleagues, alleging that their constitutional rights were violated through "sexually intrusive, humiliating" and unjustified strip-searches performed during a poorly executed drug sweep in 2008. The lawsuit, filed Monday in Washington County Circuit Court, says the plaintiffs were told to strip naked by fellow employees based on readings from drug scanning equipment, then directed to "squat and cough" to see if they were hiding controlled substances in their body cavities.

When prosecutors revealed last month that a Baltimore man accused of using a contraband cell phone in jail to order the killing of a witness was again caught with an illegal phone behind bars, the judge's jaw dropped. He couldn't fathom how this keeps happening. It's "amazing," said U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett. But jail administrators will tell you it's not. Cell phones are smuggled into prisons in Maryland and around the world by the thousands through visitors, corrupt guards and, in Brazil, carrier pigeons.

Six inmates stabbed in Jessup altercation Six inmates were stabbed yesterday at the medium-security men's prison in Jessup, a state correctional services official said. None of the injuries at Maryland Correctional Institution-Jessup appeared to be life-threatening, spokesman Mark Vernarelli said in an e-mail about the incident. But two inmates were transported to the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore and another was sent to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Vernarelli said.

Two inmates at the Jessup Correctional Institution were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center yesterday after being stabbed during an altercation, officials said. The inmates were suffering from serious injuries after the confrontation, which took place in a common area of one of the housing units, officials said. Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said one of the inmates was serving a life sentence for murder, and the other was serving a seven-year sentence for drug possession with intent to distribute.

Baltimore County police have arrested the man whom state corrections officers mistakenly released from jail a day after he was convicted of attempted murder, according to a spokesman for the state prison system. A Baltimore County police officer pulled over Calvin Boswell, 23, on Saturday and arrested him on charges of identity theft and on multiple traffic violations, according to court records. State Police brought Boswell back to the city detention center Tuesday, said Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

An inmate at the Brockbridge Correctional Center in Anne Arundel County was stabbed yesterday afternoon and remained hospitalized while the attack is being investigated, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said. The 35-year-old inmate, whose name was not released, was stabbed multiple times during an incident with another inmate at the minimum-security facility and pre-release center and was taken by ambulance to University of Maryland Medical Center in downtown Baltimore.

A correctional officer at the Baltimore City Detention Center has been arrested and charged with drug offenses after another officer saw marijuana being passed to a prisoner, according to a statement yesterday by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. According to court documents, Tonyette Yeargin, 19, of Northeast Baltimore was arrested Saturday on charges that include possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and delivery of illegal contraband. The statement says a correctional officer witnessed the incident and notified authorities.

Shaken by two violent escapes by prison inmates, a health care group that oversees a Laurel hospital announced that it will no longer admit inmates as patients in nonemergencies until security procedures are tightened. The announcement comes a day after state police said that Kelvin D. Poke, a Jessup Correctional Institution inmate who was taken to Laurel Regional Hospital after complaining of chest pain, was being guarded by just one corrections officer and was not wearing handcuffs -- two apparent violations of Division of Correction policy.

A prison inmate who escaped from a Laurel hospital was being supervised by only one correctional officer after his partner took a break and left him alone, police said yesterday. The state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services is also investigating why Kelvin D. Poke was not wearing handcuffs when he overpowered two officers, took their guns and fled in a stolen vehicle Wednesday, setting off a manhunt that ended with his death seven hours later in a police shootout in a Prince George's County cemetery.

Corrections officers restored order at the Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown last night after simultaneous fights broke out in two outdoor areas, a correction spokesman said. No staff members were injured, said Mark Vernarelli, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. The prison is a medium-security facility built in the 1930s, he said. Three institutions at the Hagerstown complex had been on lockdown until Wednesday after an altercation between members of two gangs in the minimum security yard Saturday, said one prison source familiar with the complex who asked not to be identified.