Jail

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

I have followed national news reports of 13 correctional officer involved in partnership activities with inmates as well as four female correctional officers getting pregnant by inmates ("Alleged gang leader in poor jail conditions, his lawyer says," May 15). No one can deny that this is alarming and disgraceful! Unions will say it is the result of under-staffing and more money is the answer. Money and more staff is not the answer. It is leadership! Gov. Martin O'Malley demonstrated his lack leadership skills and lack of common sense when he endorsed the union's bill of rights which gives correctional officers an automatic appeal before three correctional officers.

Former NBA player Oliver J. Miller was sentenced Friday to a year in the Anne Arundel County jail for pistol-whipping his girlfriend's brother in Arnold. Miller, 41, who was living with his girlfriend in Edgewater, pleaded guilty last fall to first-degree assault and carrying a handgun. "I apologize for the wrong I've done," Miller told Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner. He said he is "just a man protecting the people I love. " The allegations stemmed from a family argument at a cookout April 17 at a friend's home.

Amid the unfolding jail scandal in Baltimore right now, there are two things relevant to the gay community that I want to bring up. I'm not sure if there are any connections between the two, or if one affects the other. But viewed together, they do present some interesting questions. First: Non-heterosexual inmates in jails and prisons across the country reported a far greater degree of sexual victimization in the last two years than their straight counterparts, according to a study released by the U.S. Department of Justice last week.

In the black market of Maryland's prisons and jails, where the right price can secure cellphones and drugs, transactions unfold through a complex system of currency. Among the key elements: 14-digit codes, prepaid debit cards and text messages. One brand of cards - Green Dot - is so ubiquitous that it has become part of the lexicon on the inside. The recent federal indictment of two dozen inmates and corrections officers in an alleged Black Guerrilla Family corruption scandal at the Baltimore City Detention Center notes several instances in which suspects refer to "dots" in transactions.

As I assessed the situation at the Baltimore City jail, and the subsequent indictments that came down because of the corruption of a few, I realized that while the rosy portrait painted by Gov. Martin O'Malley may not have been as bright as he would have liked the public to believe, it certainly was nowhere near as gloomy as your recent editorial portrayed it ("O'Malley can't spin his way out of the jail scandal," April 30). It's easy to point the finger after the hard work has been done; as they say, "hindsight is 20/20.

Baltimoreans are discovering that the inmates have been running the Baltimore City Detention Center, namely the BGF or Black Guerrilla Family ("Corruption alleged at jail," April 24). Tavon "Bulldog" White, a leader in the BGF gang was quoted as saying "This is my jail. " Who would argue with him, as the incriminating article did not mention the name of the detention center's warden? Now that it's been resolved as to who is running the prison, it makes me question how this situation devolved into its current state.

I have been reading with great interest the recent articles on the Baltimore City Detention Center and Central Booking ("City jail oversight said to be lacking," Aug. 6). Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of the abhorrent conditions defense lawyers face when attempting to have meaningful interviews with clients. In the BCDC, we are forced to conduct interviews in filthy, cramped booths equipped with equally filthy backless iron stools. More often than not, there is no real privacy or ability to go over audio tapes, etc. These conditions are deplorable, along with the loud yelling of inmates as well as the officers.

From the Baltimore Sun's Jill Rosen: Ethan Phillip Weibman who plead guilty last fall to animal abuse in the death of one cat and the beating of another was sentenced Wednesday to 90 days in prison. After District Judge Charles A. Chiapparelli's ruling, officers immediately took the 20-year-old, a short-time Baltimore resident originally from a wealthy hamlet in Westchester County, N.Y., into custody, as his mother shrieked in protest. “It's not just a crime, it's a person I'm sentencing,” Chiapparelli said.

E ighteen days after his marijuana-possession arrest, one of our clients, a 25-year-old Baltimore man, remained in jail at taxpayer expense. The defendant, a veteran of the war in Iraq, never failed to appear in court and had only one previous conviction for using marijuana, which resulted in his current probation. But he was still incarcerated at the city's Central Booking and Intake Center, simply because he could not afford his $1,000 bail. Maintaining a pretrial jail population is costly.

Maryland corrections officials are taking advantage of new technology designed to block the use of contraband cellphones by inmates - a problem at the heart of recent indictments at the Baltimore City Detention Center. In a program being used at another prison facility in Baltimore, phones smuggled inside have been severed from the network and rendered inoperable, officials said. The new system, which the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services hopes to expand, could supplement efforts to find the phones using metal detectors or trained dogs to sniff them out. The department says it is catching more illicit phones than ever - more than 1,300 were found in the last fiscal year - but the federal indictments show the limits of those efforts.

I was volunteer and then staff chaplain at the Baltimore City Detention Center. I was terminated 2011, four months short of 16 years. The commissioner saw an inmate using the phone in my office as I was listening. This has always been a major element of my job description. Other support staff that interact with inmates do the same. One said to me he thought providing phone access was part of my job. The phones on the sections need cumbersome complex prior arrangements for payment and cannot call many locations needed.

Fox News is not backing off on the Baltimore prison story scandal despite a bunch of big national stories that have conservatives salivating over the damage they see the Obama administration suffering. Take a look at this video (below) from Bill O'Reilly that features Jesse Watters bird-dogging Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Gary Maynard, the chief of Maryland prisons. Check out O'Reilly saying that Maynard "sounds like a moron. " I asked O'Malley about it Tuesday morning in Joppa during a set visit he paid to the soundstages where "House of Cards" is filmed.

Saying that "those who made the laws have an obligation to obey them," a District Court judge in Annapolis sentenced state Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. on Tuesday to 30 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to operating a boat while under the influence. Dwyer, 55, a Republican from Pasadena, immediately filed an appeal. The sentence stems from a powerboat collision last summer on the Magothy River involving Dwyer's boat, the Legislator, and another vessel. Several people were injured in the crash, and toxicology tests showed that Dwyer had a blood alcohol level of 0.24 percent, three times the legal limit for being under the influence.

As I assessed the situation at the Baltimore City jail, and the subsequent indictments that came down because of the corruption of a few, I realized that while the rosy portrait painted by Gov. Martin O'Malley may not have been as bright as he would have liked the public to believe, it certainly was nowhere near as gloomy as your recent editorial portrayed it ("O'Malley can't spin his way out of the jail scandal," April 30). It's easy to point the finger after the hard work has been done; as they say, "hindsight is 20/20.

Months before a federal indictment detailed allegations of corruption at the Baltimore City Detention Center, the smuggling and sexual improprieties at the core of that case had already been outlined in an inmate's lawsuit. Calvin Hemphill, in a handwritten civil complaint filed in federal court in July, alleged that fellow inmate Tavon White was a gang leader who held a startling degree of jailhouse power. Cellphones - illegal in the jail - were readily available to White, he held control over the jail's "working man" program, and he was able to come and go from his cell as he pleased, according to the court papers.

Despite objections from youth advocates and some city lawmakers, momentum is building in the State House to construct a new 120-bed jail in Baltimore for youths who are charged as adults. Debate over the proposed jail has swirled in Baltimore and the halls of Annapolis since 2010, with state officials demanding more space for imprisoned youths and advocates saying the resources would be better spent on education and prevention. "I think that it has been studied enough," said Del. Adrienne A. Jones, after a House Capital Budget Subcommittee briefing on the project Wednesday morning.

Baltimore County police continue to search for a prisoner who was mistakenly released from the county's detention center Monday. Kevin Taron Kent, 26, was released by staff at the detention center, according to a news release from the Police Department. He was arrested Friday for narcotics violations and had been denied bail, according to police. Kent's last known address is in the 3300 block of Orlando Ave. in Baltimore. Police describe him as a black male, 5 foot 9, 190 pounds, with short black hair and brown eyes.

The call came into the Baltimore County emergency dispatch center just after midnight. An unidentified woman asked police respond to a home in Parkville. She didn't say why. When officers arrived in the first minutes of Sunday, they found 26-year-old Paul White Jr., who had been released from the county jail less than three months earlier, leaving his family's home, police said. Inside, White's mother was found unconscious and bleeding from at least one stab wound from a kitchen knife, and his sister was also found stabbed and bleeding, police said.