Maryland Correctional

In a move to improve security at Maryland correctional institutions, inmates serving life terms who have an escape history have been transferred to more secure facilities.As of July 28, said Commissioner of Correction William W. Sondervan, 52 of 73 inmates whose records were reviewed have been transferred to the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup, the Roxbury Correctional Institution at Hagerstown or the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland.The action followed the recent escape of two inmates from the Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup, Sondervan said.

The inmate claims officers at the Maryland Correctional Institute at Hagerstown tortured him physically and mentally, and then denied him the medication he needed to lower his high blood pressure. "I am writing because I am going through racial cruel and unusual punishment," Michael Vaughn wrote in a letter postmarked July 2. "Since I've been on J-1 [a disciplinary segregation section of the prison] I've been called [racial and other epithets]. I've been choked unconscious with handcuffs on, I've had my meals took for five days, I've had a plastic shield in front of my cell which blocks air from coming in my cell."

A Hagerstown prison was locked down after minor fights in two locations yesterday, a Division of Corrections spokeswoman said. Maj. Priscilla Doggett, the spokeswoman, said she was not aware of any injuries caused by the fights at the Maryland Correctional Training Center, a medium-security prison that houses 2,000 inmates. No one was taken to the hospital for treatment, she said. She declined to comment about whether tensions between gangs were a factor in yesterday's fight. The incident was under investigation, Doggett said.

Talk about a Catch-22 situation. Mentors in the Friend of a Friend program at the Maryland Correctional Training Center take on the responsibility of talking to other inmates in an effort to defuse violent situations and encourage peaceful resolutions to conflicts. Inevitably, this will involve talking to an inmate who's a gang member. But, Dominique Stevenson says, at least one FOF mentor has told her that talking to gang members has gotten him "tagged" by prison officials as a gang member himself.

The Rev. Kloman F. X. Riggie, pastor of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church in Hagerstown and former Maryland state correctional chaplain, died Monday of a heart attack while preparing for Mass. He was 64.Father Riggie arrived in Hagerstown in 1966, when he became assistant pastor at St. Mary Roman Catholic Church. The next year, Cardinal Lawrence J. Shehan of Baltimore asked him to be the archdiocesan chaplain of the Maryland state correctional system. For 20 years, he served as a spiritual leader at the Maryland Correctional Training Center, the Roxbury Correctional Institution and the Maryland Correctional Institution.

The candles burned brightly on the altar as the 15 Lutheran worshipers lowered their heads and prayed. After a unanimous amen, the men's heads straightened and they began to read the Bible and sing "Jesus, Remember Me.""The theme for this evening kind of picks up from last week when Jesus announced to the world that he was the bread of life," the Rev. Charles Robert Frederick told the men. "When God fills us with his spirit, we have new purpose for our lives."The Lutheran pastor's sermon and the chapel's decorations resembled many other churches.

A VOICE from behind bars is the MCI-H Weekly News, written and published by inmates at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown. Its July 23 issue raises a question that surely goes against the lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key passions of a crime-obsessed society.The question is whether convicts with so-called life sentences that actually allow parole after a set number of years of incarceration should be permitted outside prison to work in the Maryland Correctional Pre-Release System.

HAGERSTOWN -- While a probe continues into the causes of the May 25 inmate uprising at the Maryland Correctional Institution at Hagerstown, the warden of the riot-torn prison has been transferred to an administrative position, state corrections officials said yesterday.Mason Waters, who was warden at MCI at Hagerstown for more than two years, will be replaced by Lloyd L. Waters, who is warden at the neighboring Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown, said Sgt. Gregory M. Shipley, corrections spokesman.

Slayings' suspect John Frederick Thanos has been taken off a life-support system and is listed in satisfactory condition at University Hospital following a May 7 suicide attempt at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center.Joyce Tarrant, a spokeswoman for University Hospital, said Thanos is improving after being on a respirator for two days."He really has no injuries," Tarrant said, adding that neurological exams showed there is no permanent brain damage.Thanos, 41, was hospitalized after correctional officers found him unconscious in his cell.

Yesterday's melee at the Metropolitan Transition Center in East Baltimore brought back memories of its notorious, violence-soaked past, when it was known simply as the Maryland Pen. The knife fight in the outdoor yard that left at least 18 inmates seriously injured, three with life-threatening wounds, was probably one of the worst, in terms of numbers, in the old stone prison's 196-year history, said Wallace Shugg, author of A Monument to Good Intentions: The...

A Hagerstown prison was locked down after minor fights in two locations yesterday, a Division of Corrections spokeswoman said. Maj. Priscilla Doggett, the spokeswoman, said she was not aware of any injuries caused by the fights at the Maryland Correctional Training Center, a medium-security prison that houses 2,000 inmates. No one was taken to the hospital for treatment, she said. She declined to comment about whether tensions between gangs were a factor in yesterday's fight. The incident was under investigation, Doggett said.

Yesterday's melee at the Metropolitan Transition Center in East Baltimore brought back memories of its notorious, violence-soaked past, when it was known simply as the Maryland Pen. The knife fight in the outdoor yard that left at least 18 inmates seriously injured, three with life-threatening wounds, was probably one of the worst, in terms of numbers, in the old stone prison's 196-year history, said Wallace Shugg, author of A Monument to Good Intentions: The...

Gov. Martin O'Malley's commitment to increased safety in Maryland prisons makes for good politics. It won't be good public policy, however, until Mr. O'Malley invests more in inmate and rehabilitation training programs. Mr. O'Malley announced last week that he was funding 155 new correctional officers at about $6.7 million, a decision that addresses complaints of correctional officers who say the prisons were understaffed during the Ehrlich administration. It also appeals to Western Maryland lawmakers who care deeply about jobs in their area.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to nearly double funding - up to $93.9 million - for "anti-recidivism" efforts in his state, including more drug treatment, counseling and housing assistance for inmates upon their release. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, understands that meeting the primary goal of a state corrections system - protecting the public - includes keeping the worst criminals behind bars and reducing the rate at which other inmates commit crimes once they return to society.

Maryland lost about $3.5 million during the past four years because state prison administrators didn't charge the federal government enough to cover the cost of housing federal prisoners, according to a legislative audit released yesterday. The daily reimbursement rate of $132 has remained unchanged since 1999 even though the cost to house federal inmates at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in Baltimore has risen to $162, auditors wrote. The audit suggested that state corrections officials renegotiate the federal contract each year to fully recover such costs.

The commissioner of the Maryland Division of Correction retired yesterday amid continuing turmoil over the state's troubled prisons and the slayings of two correctional officers by inmates this year. Frank C. Sizer Jr., 62, delivered his resignation in the form of a two weeks' notice yesterday afternoon to Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Mary Ann Saar, said Jacqueline Lampell, her spokeswoman. "He simply told the secretary he was retiring," Lampell said. "I can't comment on her response.

A 20-year-old prison inmate serving a three-year sentence for unarmed robbery was killed by one or more inmates on a bus trip from Hagerstown to Baltimore early yesterday, state correctional officials said. The inmate, Phillip Eugene Parker Jr., was killed between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on a bus that contained 35 prisoners, all in handcuffs and leg irons. according to Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Division of Correction. The Associated Press reported that Parker was among several inmates at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in Baltimore, also known as Supermax, who had been brought to Hagerstown to testify Tuesday at the sentencing of Kevin G. Johns Jr., who strangled his 16-year-old cellmate at the Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown in January 2004.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's commitment to increased safety in Maryland prisons makes for good politics. It won't be good public policy, however, until Mr. O'Malley invests more in inmate and rehabilitation training programs. Mr. O'Malley announced last week that he was funding 155 new correctional officers at about $6.7 million, a decision that addresses complaints of correctional officers who say the prisons were understaffed during the Ehrlich administration. It also appeals to Western Maryland lawmakers who care deeply about jobs in their area.

Inmate assaults on Maryland correctional officers rose sharply from 2003 to 2005 -- a time when staff positions were being eliminated, overtime budgets were cut and vacancies went unfilled, a legislative panel was told yesterday. A report summarizing how prison staffing levels affect safety was prepared by nonpartisan legislative analysts, who presented their findings to a joint hearing of Senate and House subcommittees in Annapolis yesterday. The legislators met in emergency session to discuss a wave of recent prison violence, including the fatal stabbing of a correctional officer at the House of Correction in Jessup last month.

The parents of a prison inmate allegedly strangled by a fellow inmate as they were being transported on a bus filed suit against the state and corrections officials in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday, blaming their negligence as well as inadequate security measures for the death of their son. The suit seeks $51 million in damages and more than $7,000 in funeral expenses. But Melissa Rodriguez, the mother of 20-year-old Philip E. Parker Jr., who died as he was being taken from a court hearing in Hagerstown to the prison he was assigned to in Baltimore, said her suit is about more than money: It's about answers.