Detention Center

A staff worker at the Alfred D. Noyes juvenile detention center in Rockville has been charged with assault by Montgomery County police after a teen-age boy was slapped there last month, according to investigators. Lester B. Palmer, 39, of Gaithersburg was arrested Tuesday in the March 28 incident, police said. Detective John Higdon said Palmer and the 16-year-old were apparently arguing over telephone privileges when the incident occurred in an activity room. Palmer, who was put on administrative duty after the incident, was charged with child abuse and second-degree assault, Higdon said, and released yesterday on $7,500 bond.

County police arrested yesterday a 16-year-old escapee from the Prince William County Detention Center in Virginia at a trailer park in Lothian, police said.Police, who had been tipped off about the youth's whereabouts, arrived at the trailer in the 4700 block of Flanders Lane about 1:30 a.m. They captured the youth as he tried to run out the back door.After his arrest, police said the youth claimed responsibility for four vehicle thefts in Anne Arundel County and gave officers the name of an accomplice.

State officials have not ruled out the Lane Building at Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville in their search for a juvenile detention center site.The Juvenile Services Agency needs a facility to serve Area II, which includes Carroll, Harford and Baltimore counties."We are continuing to look for alternative sites in Area II," Mary Ann Saar, juvenile services secretary, wrote in a letter to members of the South Carroll Coalition, a community activist group."I cannot completely rule out the option of the Lane Building until I find an acceptable alternative" Ms. Saar said.

The plan to move into the new $6.1 million addition at the Carroll County Detention Center on Saturday was called off when corrections officials discovered a malfunction in a pump circulating hot water from a boiler."

Prison officials are investigating the fatal stabbing of a 28-year-old man Wednesday night at the Baltimore City Detention Center. Kennard Pratt was stabbed several times while leaving a shower to return to his cell about 7 p.m., authorities said. Detention center and medical staff performed CPR and took him to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead. Pratt had been jailed since February, awaiting trial on murder charges. Officials said no motive or suspect had been identified.

THE TOUGHEST JOB in the county may be running the detention center. Only someone who administers an institution that is both a way station for future state penitentiary inmates and a lockup for offenders serving short sentences can fully appreciate the difficulty.But an occasional view from the outside is invaluable. That is why we find it puzzling that Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker summarily dismissed a county grand jury report that evaluated operations at the detention center and offered recommendations.

Baltimore County officials have settled a federal lawsuit by agreeing to transfer pretrial detainees from police lockups to the county detention center within 48 hours after arrests.Judge Joseph C. Howard signed a consent decree late yesterday that will put the new practice into effect between Jan. 1 and Feb. 1, 1991.The decree settled a class-action civil suit filed by the Maryland Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prisoners who sometimes were held in county police lockups for weeks due to overcrowding at the detention center.

The Harford County Detention Center is run efficiently and has no major problems, according to a report by a jail accrediting service that was paid $7,200 by the sheriff's office to conduct the study.This assessment comes at a time when County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann is trying to gain control of the facility from the sheriff's office, which she contends has done a poor job of administering the jail and supervising its inmates.The American Correctional Association, a private consulting organization based in Laurel, audits about 200 of the 3,500 correctional facilities in the United States every three years.

A 17-year-old Baltimore youth stabbed another boy at a state-run juvenile detention center early Sunday, authorities said yesterday. State police identified the assailant in the incident at the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School as Rayce Justin Robinson. He has been charged as an adult with attempted murder, assault and possession of a deadly weapon, officials said. The victim, 16, was treated for minor injuries at a hospital and was then returned to Hickey, said Edward Hopkins, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services.

To keep pace with the rising inmate population at the Carroll County Detention Center, the jail's gymnasium will be converted into a minimum security unit. The county commissioners unanimously approved the $200,000 project, which is expected to begin this summer. It will complete the expansion and renovation of the jail complex, which included a 100-bed addition that opened in November, after several delays caused by design modifications, excavation problems, construction changes and equipment malfunctions.