NEWS
August 20, 2009
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.
NEWS
August 15, 2009
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.
NEWS
By Don Markus | August 15, 2009
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.
NEWS
By Mary Gail Hare | June 14, 2009
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.
NEWS
By David Kohn | October 26, 2008
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.
NEWS
By Julie Scharper | October 10, 2008
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.
NEWS
By Doug Donovan | August 17, 2008
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.
NEWS
By MELISSA HARRIS | July 9, 2008
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.
NEWS
By Steven Stanek | May 25, 2008
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.
NEWS
By STEVE CHAPMAN | March 17, 2008
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.