Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announcing the “immediate” closing of the Men’s Detention Center housed in the Baltimore City Detention Center. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The immediate closing of the beleaguered Baltimore City Detention Center’s men’s facility generally is being hailed as positive move, but concerns remain about where and in what conditions the displaced inmates will be housed.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced the abrupt closure of the notorious Men’s Detention Center July 30th, citing its history of unbridled corruption, deplorable living conditions and financial infeasibility.
“The Baltimore City Detention Center has been a black eye for our state for too long,” Hogan said. “The practice of continually dumping hard-earned taxpayer money into this disastrous facility will not continue under my watch.”
The Detention Center, the busiest jail in the state, made national headlines in 2013 for a sex, drugs and corruption scandal involving the Black Guerilla Family, a gang that ran an extensive illegal enterprise from the jail – including smuggling drugs, cell phones, tobacco and other contraband into the downtown jail and other facilities –with the help of correctional officers, four of whom were impregnated by the gang’s leader.
Public Safety Secretary Stephen Moyer told the AFRO that Governor Hogan brought him in to root out corruption in the Department of Corrections, and that the closure of the Men’s Detention Center is part of the solution.
“We have over 11,000 employees, 95 percent of whom are great employees. But, as with any business of this size, we have a couple of bad actors who we needed to remove,” he said.
But the rampant vice in the state-run jail was only aided by the disgraceful and unsafe conditions at the jail, Moyer said. The Men’s Detention Center, part of a maze-like warren of about a dozen buildings, was built before the Civil War. And, despite 11 renovations and repairs costing more than $10 million in the past five years, the facility remains barely usable. In fact, portions have even been closed off because of crumbling, unstable infrastructure.
“This is by far the worst existing open facility that I’ve ever seen. Every time I go over there I look at the conditions I’m appalled,” said Moyer, who made many visits to the facility in his 24 years as a state police officer. “This entire place should have been torn down decades ago…. We need to provide livable, modern facilities for inmates.”
In addition to the physical conditions of the jail making it unsafe for detainees and employees, running the facility was not fiscally feasible, Moyer said. A capital plan had called for overhauling the entire BCDC complex, including demolishing the Detention Center, in the next eight to 10 years. But not only was the facility proving to be a bottomless draw on taxpayers’ dollars, but the decline in the state’s prison population meant there was plenty room in other correctional facilities to house the 750 or so inmates currently being housed in the Men’s Detention Center.
Debra Gardner, legal director for the Baltimore-based Public Justice Center praised the facility’s closure as a “positive step” that was “long overdue.” But, she added, there is much more that needs to be done.
In June, the Public Justice Center, American Civil Liberties Union and other legal partners filed a motion to reopen the federal case Duvall v. Hogan citing inhumane conditions such as an infestation of vermin, black mold and other unsanitary complaints in the Men’s Detention Center and other facilities in the Baltimore jail system. In 1991, the state took over operations of the jail due to continued problems. In 2002, the Department of Justice deemed that certain conditions at the BCDC “violate the constitutional rights of inmates.” Yet, those conditions remained.
“We have had serious concerns with the provision of health care and mental health care throughout the facility; we have serious concerns about the physical conditions for inmates with disabilities; and we’ve had serious concerns about the safety and sanitation standards in the women’s detention center and throughout the facility,” Gardner told the AFRO. “We’re hoping that not pouring good money after bad – now that the men’s detention center is being closed – will allow the state to focus on other areas.”
Moyer has said the facility’s employees will be moved into vacancies throughout the state’s correctional facilities and that the mostly pre-trial detainees will be moved to correctional institutions in and around Baltimore.
But relatives of inmates and their legal advocates remain concerned about what the move would mean for their clients’ constitutional rights.
“Our concern is this: We don’t have a clear plan about what’s going to happen with these individuals,” said Natalie Finegar, deputy district public defender, in an interview with WYPR, Baltimore’s National Public Radio station. “Where are these folks going? Are we going to have access to them? Is the access going to be within Baltimore so that it’s reasonably efficient for my attorneys to get there? And what’s their health care going to look like there, because health care concerns are spread all across the Department of Corrections?”
Moyer has said that family members will have access to several telephone numbers to gain information about where their loved one has been moved. He also said he has assured the Public Defender’s Office that it would have access to clients. But beyond that, he could not offer more details.
Finegar said she is not reassured because it is not clear whether Moyer’s plan has factored in things like the conditions at the other DOC institutions in the Baltimore area.
For example, she said, “Over at the Jail Industries Building, they recently shut down their visitation booths, and so our office was being forced to go up on a tier where inmates are folding laundry and have what is supposed to be a private conversation about an upcoming trial there.
“Even if they open up the visitation area, there are only three or four booths there,” she added. “So putting 800 people into these local areas where the visitation is already in too high of a demand is just going to increase the problem.”
Family members of detainees can locate and contact their loved ones after they have been moved by calling: 410-545-8120, 410-545-8121, 410-545-8128, and 410-545-8129.