Safety And Correctional

Nineteen inmates -- most of them serving life terms for murder -- were removed from the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup and three correctional officers flunked preliminary drug tests in a surprise sweep of the maximum-security prison that began before dawn yesterday.Nearly 300 correctional officers, state police and police dog teams moved into the prison complex before dawn in what a prison system spokesman termed a combination crackdown and training exercise financed in part by a $475,000 federal grant.

Shawn E. Brown -- described by police as an "inherently evil" predator of children before his conviction last year in the strangling deaths of two Baltimore boys -- was sentenced yesterday to two consecutive life terms without parole plus 30 consecutive years for kidnapping.The sentence makes it virtually impossible for Brown to be released.Brown, who at his jury trial claimed to be a 3,729-year-old immortal who only wanted the boys for research into human sexuality, was sentenced by Baltimore Circuit Judge Joseph P. McCurdy.

In a July 18 article, The Sun incorrectly reported the name of the state agency involved in a contract dispute with PHP Health Care Corp. The controversy involves the Department of Public ++ Safety and Correctional Services.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 8/07/98

An article on Page 1B of the Maryland section in the Oct. 10 editions of The Sun incorrectly reported that former state police Superintendent George Brosan was fired in 1987 because he refused to promote Larry W. Tolliver from sergeant to lieutenant. At the time Brosan was fired, Tolliver was already a lieutenant.Further, then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer and public safety Secretary Bishop L. Robinson, who oversaw state police at the time, say that Brosan was not fired because he refused to promote Tolliver to a higher rank of lieutenant.

Angelina Griffin thought that having her husband arrested would save his life. Instead, Daniel Griffin died alone, sprawled on the floor of a holding cell -- even though a doctor reportedly had twice ordered treatment that might have kept him alive.A correctional major suspected of disregarding the doctor has been placed on administrative leave while the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services investigates. Meanwhile, the family of a man they say had never been arrested before is demanding answers to the questions that linger about his death.

An unusual Baltimore court program to supervise criminals in the community hasn't had to look far for some of its workers -- employing the relatives and friends of the very circuit judges who sit on its personnel committee.Baltimore Circuit Judges Roger W. Brown Sr. and Mabel E. H. Hubbard sit on the committee that selects employees for the Alternative Sentencing Unit. Since 1994, the unit has hired two of Brown's children, one of Hubbard's two sons, the son's friend and the child of a top assistant to Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy.

An internal audit of an unusual Baltimore court program that monitors criminals in the community has found such "far-reaching deficiencies" that they posed a potential threat to public safety.A legislator who learned of the results yesterday called for the program to be abolished if the deficiencies are not corrected swiftly.The 8-year-old program -- called the Alternative Sentencing Unit -- is intended to be "superintensive," a criminal's last chance at community supervision before he is sent to prison.

A state administrative hearings judge has ordered officials to lift the suspension of correctional officer Candace Mayo after ruling that she was an unwilling participant in "horseplaying" with two superiors at the Maryland Penitentiary.Personnel officials with the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services received the order yesterday and were reviewing it, said David Towers, an agency spokesman. The department is permitted to appeal the judge's decision.The state failed to prove that Mayo willingly allowed both of her hands to be cuffed and have water flicked in her face during the July 29 incident, said Ann C. Kehinde, administrative law judge for the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings, in a 25-page decision Tuesday.

State officials have told the Justice Department that they stand by practices at Maryland's Supermax prison, despite a federal investigation that concluded the prison violates the civil rights of inmates.The state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services was responding to a May 1 letter from Deval L. Patrick, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who charged that the investigation found Supermax was operating unconstitutionally. Patrick said that if the state did not respond within 49 days, it could be sued for the alleged violations, which included "grossly deficient" mental health services and inadequate access to exercise and medical care.

An inmate held on burglary and trespassing charges committed suicide yesterday at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, correctional officials said.An officer at the center discovered Lavon C. Hinton, 45, of the 2200 block of Madison Ave. lying in his cell shortly after 9 a.m. with a sheet around his neck and the end tied to the top bunk. He was pronounced dead at 9: 33 a.m.The death is being investigated by state police and the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services' Division of Pretrial Detention.

Eight people who worked at the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown have filed a $40 million lawsuit against nine colleagues, alleging that their constitutional rights were violated through "sexually intrusive, humiliating" and unjustified strip-searches performed during a poorly executed drug sweep in 2008. The lawsuit, filed Monday in Washington County Circuit Court, says the plaintiffs were told to strip naked by fellow employees based on readings from drug scanning equipment, then directed to "squat and cough" to see if they were hiding controlled substances in their body cavities.

When prosecutors revealed last month that a Baltimore man accused of using a contraband cell phone in jail to order the killing of a witness was again caught with an illegal phone behind bars, the judge's jaw dropped. He couldn't fathom how this keeps happening. It's "amazing," said U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett. But jail administrators will tell you it's not. Cell phones are smuggled into prisons in Maryland and around the world by the thousands through visitors, corrupt guards and, in Brazil, carrier pigeons.

Two inmates at the Jessup Correctional Institution were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center yesterday after being stabbed during an altercation, officials said. The inmates were suffering from serious injuries after the confrontation, which took place in a common area of one of the housing units, officials said. Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said one of the inmates was serving a life sentence for murder, and the other was serving a seven-year sentence for drug possession with intent to distribute.

Baltimore County police have arrested the man whom state corrections officers mistakenly released from jail a day after he was convicted of attempted murder, according to a spokesman for the state prison system. A Baltimore County police officer pulled over Calvin Boswell, 23, on Saturday and arrested him on charges of identity theft and on multiple traffic violations, according to court records. State Police brought Boswell back to the city detention center Tuesday, said Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Dogs have long been used to find drugs in prisons, but the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has found a new use for them: sniffing out cell phones. Three canines were specially trained by Division of Correction K-9 Unit officers to detect cell phones as part of stepped-up efforts to stop contraband from getting into state prisons. In the past few years, Maryland inmates have increasingly been caught with cell phones, which in some cases have been used to arrange drug deals or even killings from behind bars.

In an effort to reduce the number of self-inflicted deaths in Maryland prisons, inmates placed on suicide watch are being monitored by unlikely aides: their fellow criminals. Officials with the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services say the practice, launched last year after a spike in suicides, enlists only the most trustworthy of inmates. But some critics say it's a shortcut for staff-strapped institutions, and a report last fall recommended that one area jail discontinue the practice after finding that prisoners can agitate their suicidal peers.

A correctional officer at the Baltimore City Detention Center has been arrested and charged with drug offenses after another officer saw marijuana being passed to a prisoner, according to a statement yesterday by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. According to court documents, Tonyette Yeargin, 19, of Northeast Baltimore was arrested Saturday on charges that include possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and delivery of illegal contraband. The statement says a correctional officer witnessed the incident and notified authorities.

While awaiting trial nearly three years ago, Raymond Smoot was beaten to death by correctional officers at Baltimore's Central Booking and Intake Facility. His death prompted an FBI investigation, City Council hearings and a bill to create a prison violence task force. But three years after cries of "never again," the task force has not yet convened, and recent reports suggest that Maryland's prisons inflict punishments beyond what any judge or jury might imagine. It's time to take meaningful steps to shine the light of public scrutiny on Maryland's jails and prisons.

Shaken by two violent escapes by prison inmates, a health care group that oversees a Laurel hospital announced that it will no longer admit inmates as patients in nonemergencies until security procedures are tightened. The announcement comes a day after state police said that Kelvin D. Poke, a Jessup Correctional Institution inmate who was taken to Laurel Regional Hospital after complaining of chest pain, was being guarded by just one corrections officer and was not wearing handcuffs -- two apparent violations of Division of Correction policy.

A prison inmate who escaped from a Laurel hospital was being supervised by only one correctional officer after his partner took a break and left him alone, police said yesterday. The state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services is also investigating why Kelvin D. Poke was not wearing handcuffs when he overpowered two officers, took their guns and fled in a stolen vehicle Wednesday, setting off a manhunt that ended with his death seven hours later in a police shootout in a Prince George's County cemetery.