Safety And Correctional

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.

Disputes over unpaid bills at the state's new Central Booking and Intake Center could leave taxpayers with several million dollars more to pay for the vaunted building and leave legislators with concern over the state's relationship with contractors.Blumenthal-Kahn Electric Limited Partnership of Owings Mills, a subcontractor on the monolithic jail that looms over the Jones Falls Expressway, claims it is owed several million dollars and is in financial trouble because the state has delayed processing requests for payment.

In Baltimore City Ex-safety chief Simms named partner in law firm Stuart O. Simms, former secretary of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, has been named a partner in the Baltimore law firm of Brown, Goldstein & Levy. Simms headed the public safety and correctional department for five years, managing one of the state's largest agencies, with more than 12,000 employees and a $900 million budget. He also headed the state's Department of Juvenile Justice for two years, served in an elected position as Baltimore state's attorney from 1987 to 1995, and earlier was a deputy city prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney.

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.

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.

Beyond the racks of fancy jams, the fresh fish on ice and the cases of pastries at Gourmet Again in Pikesville, Herbert Keys stands in his apron and plastic gloves making sandwiches and slicing pounds of meat and cheese for his customers. It is a welcome change of scenery for Keys to be spending time behind the deli counter instead of behind bars. Keys, who has faced drug charges and said he recently spent 10 months in jail, came to the Pikesville caterer and gourmet grocery through a work-release program.

Gov.-elect Parris N. Glendening has tapped the Prince George's County police chief, a longtime Schaefer Cabinet member and a Montgomery County lawyer to head the state's safety and transportation agencies.Bishop L. Robinson, 67, a former Baltimore police commissioner who has served two terms in William Donald Schaefer's Cabinet, was nominated for a third term as secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.David B. Mitchell, 44, chief of the Prince George's County Police Department since 1990, was nominated as state police superintendent.

A 51-year-old prison inmate's death at the Western Correctional Institute after guards forcibly removed him from his cell has been ruled a homicide by the state medical examiner's office. Ifeanya A. Iko, a Nigerian immigrant, died of asphyxiation, according to Karen V. Poe, spokeswoman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore. "We were not able to identify a specific injury that led to Mr. Iko's asphyxia," Poe said yesterday. Prison officials said Iko was found motionless in his cell at 4:30 p.m. April 30. He was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital in Cumberland, where he died 40 minutes later.

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. said yesterday that early-release credits earned on a prior sentence should not have been used to free rapist and robber John Frederick Thanos 18 months early.Mr. Curran stopped short of saying that the Division of Correction made a mistake in releasing Thanos by reducing his term with so-called "good time" from an earlier sentence, because he said he did not know the specifics of the case."I don't know where the 'good time' came from that was credited to Mr. Thanos," he said.

TOMI HIERS, who serves in the Ehrlich administration with a half-mile title - executive assistant to the deputy secretary for operations, Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services - believes the Republican governor of Maryland means to do what no Democrat in recent memory was able to do: turn criminals into productive citizens, give a guy a second chance. The administration wants to stop wasting taxpayer money - $24,000 per year per inmate - on a revolving door. "We are trying to change the culture of corrections," Hiers says.