Jail

Paris Hilton is still in jail. This fact can be confirmed at IsParisInJailRightNow.com. Go there and you'll get a one-word answer that takes up half your computer screen: YES. If, by some odd turn of events, Paris is no longer in jail, you'll most likely see a NO, but for the time being Paris is behind bars and bloggers can continue to revel in the absurdity of the situation, not the least of which includes their own over-the-top consumption of this...

Stanley J. Foster Jr. of Towson, a former warden of the Baltimore County jail, died Friday of myasthenia gravis at Wildwood, N.J. He was 76. Born on Staten Island, N.Y., Mr. Foster graduated from Good Council High School in Newark, N.J. He joined the Army, serving in the Korean War as a training, supply and mess officer, and receiving an Occupation Medal (Germany) and a National Defense Service Medal. After his discharge Mr. Foster returned to New Jersey to marry his high school sweetheart, Marie C. Siele, about whom he said "there was no other love."

Shanda R. Harris, the mother of an 11-year-old boy who police say was killed by a convicted sex offender, pleaded guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday to knowingly allowing the man to baby-sit her son. Harris, as part of an agreement reached with prosecutors, received an eight-year suspended sentence on charges of reckless endangerment and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The deal spares Harris prison time beyond what she served from Oct. 5, when she was arrested, until she posted bail March 26. Melvin Lorenzo Jones Jr., 53, is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Harris' son Irvin in July 2006.

A headline in the Maryland section yesterday could have left the impression that a man convicted of shooting a neighbor in a botched robbery and drug deal in Glen Burnie was sentenced to two months in jail. As the story said, Ronald Francis Dawson II was sentenced to one year in jail, dating to when he was arrested in December. He is expected to be released within the next two months. A headline for an article in the Maryland section Wednesday about the upcoming Parkville Towne Center Fair gave an incorrect date for the event.

MOST PEOPLE in jail have a drug addiction problem. While the offenses they are convicted of may not seem drug-related, it's often an underlying cause. So what better way to treat addictions than in the structured, regimented confinement of the jail?Carroll County's new addition to its Detention Center addresses that need with a segregated 16-bed cellblock dedicated to treating inmate-addicts. The county health department will run the rehabilitation program, affording continuity to outside follow-up treatment.

TURTLE LAKE, Wis. -- What was he supposed to do?It's not a question so much as a challenge. A challenge to anyone who thinks Lenny Miller was wrong to booby-trap his cabin with a shotgun.Three times in eight months, the cabin had been burglarized.His hunting rifles were stolen. His fishing gear, too. And his tackle box. His new chain saw and his leaf blower and his Christmas present, a fillet knife still in its box. His boat had been vandalized. His outhouse trashed. His all-terrain vehicle had been torn apart.

ROCKVILLE -- A Montgomery County circuit judge refused yesterday to shorten the jail sentence of former U.S. Senate candidate Ruthann Aron, despite her teary plea for forgiveness.During a three-hour hearing, Aron's lawyers sought to have her moved to a halfway house now rather than in April, saying her mental state is deteriorating.At the end of the hearing, Aron rose to plead her case."I don't know what I could say to the court. I don't know what anyone could say for me," she said in a soft, flat voice.

A Carroll judge ended an "experiment" of lengthy weekend sentencing yesterday and sent a Baltimore woman to jail for six months, after she violated conditions of an 88-weekend sentence on a bad-check conviction.According to jail officials, Karen M. Tucker, 38, of the 2500 block of Eutaw Place arrived at the jail under the influence of drugs on at least two occasions. She tested positive for opiates, District Court documents showed.Warden George R. Hardinger also said correctional officers were tipped that Tucker had smuggled drugs into the jail and was expected to do so again.

A Mount Airy man charged with murder in the shooting of an acquaintance early Saturday was to be transferred today from the Carroll County Detention Center to the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown to receive medical care.Dennis Brian Absher, 55, of the 4700 block of Roop Road uses a wheelchair and has extensive medical problems that the county jail cannot care for, officials said at a brief hearing yesterday in Carroll County District Court.Absher is being held without bail and has waived his right to a bail-review hearing.

When the long-awaited $6.1 million, 100-bed addition at the Carroll County Detention Center opens, it will be a temporary fix for crowding -- five to seven years at most -- jail officials said.But they are optimistic that "creative management" will afford county leaders enough time to make long-term plans.More effective use of supervised pretrial release, work release and home detention programs can buy time to look ahead five, 10 or 15 years, said Sheriff Kenneth L. Tregoning and Lt. Col. George R. Hardinger, jail warden.

While Americans spent much of the August doldrums transfixed by the national debate over health care reform, state officials moved toward resolution of a long-running dispute involving the medical care inmates receive at the 150-year-old Baltimore City Detention Center. This week, officials announced a settlement in a lawsuit originally brought in 1971 aimed at ensuring jail inmates get adequate medical treatment for illnesses such as asthma, diabetes and infectious diseases, and that they are not held in facilities rife with safety hazards and vermin.

When you get caught red-handed by Baltimore's top cop, you'd think some time in the slammer was a pretty sure bet. But that's not what happened to two brothers, Devin and Davon Rogers, who were arrested New Year's Day by none other than city Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, who chased the men down and slapped the cuffs on them after spotting them firing shotguns into the air in the Shipley Hill neighborhood. On Monday, a city judge accepted a plea deal putting both men on probation but allowing them to avoid prison time.

A 52-year-old Howard County woman, whose mother was sentenced to six months in jail for abusing cats, must serve a day in jail for each of the 74 cats that died. Nese Icgoren, of the 7300 block of Swan Point Way in Columbia, told Howard County Circuit Judge Diane O. Leasure on Friday that she couldn't get her 81-year mother, Ayten Icgoren, to properly care for a small family of cats, then failed to do anything after the felines multiplied to well over 100. Neighbors had called authorities, complaining about an odor coming from the townhouse and bugs that infested their homes.

A restoration contractor and a community group have come up with compatible projects that tie together the past and the present at Towson's gateway landmark, an imposing stone structure that was the Baltimore County jail for more than 150 years. The three-story building filled with iron-barred cells and thick concrete walls sits on 4 acres at Towsontown Boulevard and Bosley Avenue. Renovations began last week to convert the building that dates to 1854 into offices, a communal conference room and a restaurant with a spacious patio that will overlook another long-sought project - a community pool.

Ground has broken on a $29 million addition to the Harford County Detention Center. Officials said the project, which will be finished by September 2010, will ease overcrowding at the jail, at 1030 Rock Spring Road, by adding 76,000 square feet of space. "This is a good day for Harford County," said Warden Elwood Dehaven, who spoke at the groundbreaking Thursday. The jail has a capacity of 474 prisoners; Dehaven said, but at times, the number of prisoners has been as high as 550. With the addition, the jail will be able to hold 762 prisoners.

A national agency will review screening procedures at Anne Arundel County jails after an inmate attempted suicide last week, jail officials said yesterday. Four inmates have died at the Jennifer Road Detention Center this year, including two who took their own lives. A consultant with the National Institute of Corrections will visit the jail this month to see if mental health screening tests can be improved to prevent future suicides, said jail administrator Terry Kokolis. "It's tragic," Kokolis said.

Every year, an estimated 12,000 heroin addicts are arrested and processed through Baltimore's downtown booking and pretrial jails. And there are hundreds more who arrive treating their addictions with methadone. But for those who can't make bail, staying behind bars has long meant no methadone - the leading medication to ease painful withdrawal symptoms and a proven strategy to keep addicts off of heroin and clear of criminal lifestyles. Now, that's changing. Maryland's new program to dispense methadone to heroin addicts who are held at the Baltimore jail awaiting trial has rapidly grown into one of the nation's largest efforts to deliver the addiction treatment behind bars.

A wanted man mistakenly released from the Baltimore jail on $10,000 bail surrendered to city detectives yesterday afternoon at his attorney's office, said the attorney, Christie Needleman. Nathan Parker, 28, has been charged with drug offenses, and authorities say he is a leading member of the citywide "Jigga" drug organization. After a raid on the organization last Wednesday night, in which police said they seized about $30,000 worth of heroin, a court commissioner set Parker's bail at $10,000, but subsequently increased it to $100,000.

Most of the inmates awaiting trial in Anne Arundel are crammed 20 at a time into dorm-like rooms designed for 14 people. Jail officials point to such conditions when they talk about the challenges of keeping pace with a growing inmate population. The overcrowding has led to more jailhouse violence, say the officials, whose proposal for an expansion project was recently deleted from the county budget by lawmakers seeking to channel money to the school system. The $2 million in design funding for 2009 would have begun a five-year, $53 million project to add 700 inmate beds at the county's two facilities.

Politicians take people's money with a promise to fulfill desires that supposedly can't be attained any other way. Prostitutes do the same, though by reputation they are more reliable in delivering. It's not surprising for people in the same line of work to gravitate toward one another, as Eliot Spitzer and a woman called Kristen reportedly did in a Washington hotel room. I understand why Mr. Spitzer's alleged hiring of a call girl was stupid, selfish, reckless, immoral and a betrayal of his family.