Safety And Correctional

If the calendar on your wall says it's Dec. 29 - and it should - then that doesn't just mean it's my 56th birthday. It means it's time for my annual Chutzpah Awards, given at the end of each year to those whose audacity and gall would consistently register a 20 if measured on a scale of 1 to 10. Without any ado whatsoever, I'll get right to it. 10th place: The Baltimore Orioles, for having the nerve to pretend they're a major league baseball team....

An inmate at the Jessup Correctional Institution in Anne Arundel County was admitted to Maryland Shock Trauma Center after another inmate stabbed him yesterday evening, said a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Shortly before 6 p.m., several inmates were standing in a line in a common area when an altercation broke out between the victim and at least one other inmate, said Danielle Wilmsen, the spokeswoman. She said the victim, a 55-year- old man serving a life term since 1983 for first-degree murder, was stabbed in the upper body with an unknown weapon and was treated at the scene by medical staff before being taken to Shock Trauma by ambulance.

Maryland correctional authorities are investigating the death Monday night of a Baltimore City Detention Center inmate as a homicide, a prison spokesman said. Correctional officers found Xavier A. Tilghman, 21, lying in grave condition about 7:20 p.m. in his cell. Paramedics took him to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he died Tuesday, according to Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Vernarelli said that investigators in the public safety department's internal investigative unit are handling the case as an apparent homicide.

Corrections officers restored order at the Maryland Correctional Institution-Hagerstown last night after simultaneous fights broke out in two outdoor areas, a correction spokesman said. No staff members were injured, said Mark Vernarelli, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. The prison is a medium-security facility built in the 1930s, he said. Three institutions at the Hagerstown complex had been on lockdown until Wednesday after an altercation between members of two gangs in the minimum security yard Saturday, said one prison source familiar with the complex who asked not to be identified.

Just two days remained before the covert operation to close the notorious Maryland House of Correction in Jessup would be completed. State officials had planned for everything, it seemed, everything, but this: lousy weather. The call came in about 1 p.m. to the conference room-turned command center, a bland room in Reisterstown Plaza, where dry-erase boards plotted out strategies ranging from bus routes and bed space to restroom breaks for shackled prisoners traveling long distances. New Jersey state police were reporting weather forecasts of icy conditions.

562--Number of registered sex offenders in Baltimore County as of Oct. 9, 2006. (Source: state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services)

Maryland Public Safety Secretary Mary Ann Saar announced yesterday that she is retiring, making her the first in what is expected to be a stream of high-level state officials who step down as Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s term in office winds to a close. "She is retiring effective Jan. 17," said Jacqui Lampell, a spokeswoman for the agency. "She had made up her mind to go and had been talking about retiring for quite some time." Saar, 65, has worked for Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has requested an emergency meeting with state prison officials after one man was recently stabbed to death at the city's adult jail and a recently disclosed report by the U.S. Department of Justice highlighted problems at the city's juvenile jail. Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham Sr., president of the city NAACP chapter, said he requested a meeting with the secretaries of the state's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which oversees state prisons and Baltimore jails, and the Department of Juveniles Services, which oversees a juvenile jail in the city.

A registered sex offender who raped a young girl in Baltimore more than 30 years ago was charged by authorities in Washington yesterday in the killing of a 15-year-old boy, authorities said. Robert James Crosby, 51, of the 2700 block of Parkwood Ave. was charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Dominick Alonzo Dixon of Northeast Washington, whose body was found on Monday, police said. Crosby was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 1976 for the rape of a 13-year-old girl in the 800 block of W. Saratoga St., said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Public defender drops suit after fixes in Central Booking processing The public defender's office dropped its lawsuit against the state-run prison system yesterday, saying it was satisfied with progress in ending overcrowding at the Central Booking and Intake Center that had routinely kept detainees jailed longer than legally allowed. Only four people in the past nine months have been kept at the processing center for more than 24 hours without seeing a lawyer or having a bail hearing, a marked improvement from 18 months ago when as many as 84 detainees a day were being held for too long without seeing a judge or court commissioner.