Warden

It's supposed to be the answer to gridlock in the city's criminal-justice system -- but in the month since it opened, the Central Booking and Intake Center has been less than a well-oiled machine.Bail bond providers complain that it takes hours to bail out clients arrested in the Northern and Northeastern districts, which are the first of the city's nine police districts to use the state-run center for booking. That's if the suspect can even be located within the building, the bond providers say.Some city police officers, accustomed to pen and paper instead of computers, grumble that it takes them hours to process a prisoner, though prison officials say some officers are getting out in 30 minutes.

More dog wardens soon will be on the prowl for the thousands of Baltimore City scofflaws who have failed to license their pets. If you own a dog, this likely means you, since only 6,000 of the 70,000 dogs in the city are licensed.City officials will add five dog wardens to the current staff of three to knock on doors and peek into yards in search of pets not wearing the $10 license tags.The wardens also will begin enforcing an old law meant to curb dog owners who allow their barking pooches to keep the neighbors awake at night.

All the trappings of the modern jail were on show at the Howard County Detention Center yesterday -- the $2 million electronic control center; the 28-bed substance abuse facility; the clean, modern cells and lack of crowding.But state inspectors touring the Jessup facility as part of a routine audit were a day too late to witness a darker side of jail life: a struggle with an inmate that sent a 37-year-old correctional officer to the hospital, where he was later treated and released.That incident went unmentioned as jail officials touted the benefits of the facility's $12 million renovations completed last fall, including a modernized security system and expanded recreational facilities.

An immediate, gentle killing of physically healthy animals is preferable to allowing them to suffer 10 days in a cage, the county animal warden told the County Council last night.Brenda Purvis was arguing in favor of a bill that would allow the animal control shelter to immediately "euthanize" healthy pets abandoned by their owners.The center now has to keep animals 10 days before disposing of them, the longest such holding period in the state.The council passed an almost identical bill on March 6, but County Executive Charles I. Ecker vetoed it March 15.When Ms. Purvis and others testified in favor of the earlier bill, their rationale for ending the 10-day holding period was that it would make pets available for adoption sooner.

John J. O'Neill Jr., who officially takes over tomorrow as warden of the Harford County Detention Center, says the primary problems he will encounter there are familiar: too many inmates and not enough money.For the past six weeks, Mr. O'Neill has worn two hats, overseeing the Detention Center while continuing to work as the county's director of procurement, a post he has held for four years.He also handled the double duty of procurement director and acting warden for six months in 1993.Mr.

An assistant warden of the Eastern Correctional Institution in Somerset County has been fired after a 24-year career in the state prison system.Division of Correction spokeswoman Maxine Eldridge said Lewis E. Williams' employment would end Dec. 23. She refused to say whether he had been terminated, although she acknowledged that he "received notice" last Friday."

GRANITE, Okla. -- Yellow ribbons festoon trees and telephone poles along the narrow road leading to Granite's major industry, the Oklahoma State Reformatory.Those who know Bobbi Parker -- and that includes many of the 1,700 people who live here -- wear yellow ribbons on lapels and pockets to symbolize their hope that she will return home safely.Mrs. Parker, 32, wife of the deputy prison warden, Randy Parker, and Randolph Franklin Dial, a convicted murderer, both disappeared from the prison Aug. 30.Friends of Mrs. Parker say there's no possibility that she might have run away with the smooth-talking inmate.

"It's in my blood," said Mason W. Waters, the new warden of the Carroll County Detention Center."It's unusual but rewarding, and I love prison work."Sheriff John H. Brown, in introducing the new warden Friday, said he searched statewide to find the most qualified candidate for the post, which had been open for two years.The sheriff said he selected Mr. Waters "with pride."Mr. Waters said he has "no immediate changes in mind" at the detention center. "You don't walk in with changes in hand."

Prosecutors will be permitted to use evidence seized from a barn owned by a Mount Airy veterinarian accused of mistreating two cows, a Howard Circuit judge said yesterday.Judge Cornelius Sybert Jr. ruled that a Howard County Animal Control warden did not violate the constitutional rights of Richard John Burroughs by going to his barn three times in January 1992 to inspect the cows and seize evidence.Judge Sybert, citing rulings from several federal cases, said privacy laws apply only to a citizen's home -- but not to Dr. Burrough's barn in a vacant field about one-third of a mile from the veterinarian's house.