NEWS
BY A SUN STAFF WRITER | January 5, 1999
The Maryland prison system has won a $475,000 federal grant to combat drug use by inmates, sources said yesterday.President Clinton is expected to announce the grant to Maryland and similar ones to seven other states, at a White House ceremony today.The money will be used for drug-fighting efforts at the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup, a maximum-security prison with about 2,400 inmates.The grant will pay for the establishment of a prison wing devoted to drug treatment, video surveillance cameras, devices for detecting drug particles and other anti-drug efforts, sources said.
NEWS
By JULIE BYKOWICZ and JULIE BYKOWICZ,SUN REPORTER | October 6, 2005
The teenager who has been at a pretrial detention center for almost a year in spite of a felony conviction and five-year sentence has been transferred to the state's prison system. Moshe Khaver was being held yesterday at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center in Baltimore, where he will be assessed before moving to a prison to serve out the rest of his term. Khaver, 19, pleaded guilty last fall to first-degree assault. He admitted running over another teen, who spent five weeks in a coma and suffered permanent injuries, during a dispute about $20 in marijuana.
NEWS
By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE | November 11, 2000
SAN FRANCISCO - California's enormous prison system, the largest in the Western Hemisphere with more than 162,000 inmates, could be radically altered in the wake of voters' overwhelming approval Tuesday of a measure that will sentence nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of prison. Nearly one in three prisoners in California is serving time for a drug-related crime, more per capita than any other state. The new law, Proposition 36, puts California at the forefront of a national movement to reform drug laws.
NEWS
By Greg Garland and Greg Garland,sun reporter | September 22, 2006
A growing prison population of tough, young gang members and the lack of enough educational and rehabilitation programs for other inmates is fueling much of the violence in Maryland's prisons, corrections officials told a legislative panel yesterday. "Most of it is from gang-related activities, but not all of the violence is from gangs," said John A. Rowley, acting prisons commissioner. "We need to isolate these folks, and that's going to take some time." He and Public Safety Secretary Mary Ann Saar told legislators serving on a joint Senate and House of Delegates oversight committee that they are taking several steps to address security concerns.
NEWS
By Julie Bykowicz and Julie Bykowicz,SUN STAFF | December 23, 2004
Inmates in Maryland's prison system are sometimes set free months early or, in other cases, weeks late because of errors in calculating time off for good behavior and other such credits, according to a legislative audit released yesterday. The audit of 65 inmates at two prisons who were released in 2003 showed that one-third of them got out on the incorrect date. One prisoner was released more than three months early, while another remained behind bars three weeks after he became eligible for release, according to the report.
NEWS
By Ivan Penn SUN STAFF | October 2, 1997
The hand-held vacuum looks like a Dust Buster, but it collects more than just lint. Call it the drug buster.With this new drug-detection system, called the Ionscan 400, the state is searching for the most minute traces of illegal narcotics on people who visit or work at Maryland's prisons. Officials say it's more accurate than a drug-sniffing dog -- and never gets tired or needs food or exercise."The message we're sending is if you're a bad person and trying to get drugs into our prisons, we're going to catch you," said William W. Sondervan, an assistant commissioner for the state Division of Correction, during a demonstration this week at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup.