Governor shuts down Baltimore jail deemed 'deplorable'

Baltimore City Detention Center.
(Image credit: Twitter.com/MDDailyRecord)

A Civil War-era facility at the Baltimore City Detention Center that critics say should have been "condemned decades ago" will finally be shut down, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced Thursday.

See more

The governor considers the Men's Detention Center, which houses 750 pretrial inmates, a "black eye" and "embarrassment" to the state. The inmates will be moved to other detention centers, officials said, but the women's jail, central booking facility, and other pretrial buildings will stay open. By closing the facility, Maryland will save between $10 million and $15 million annually "without compromising detainees' access to legal protections," Stephen T. Moyer, secretary of public safety and correctional services, said.

In 2013, federal prosecutors charged several people, including corrections officers, with letting a gang operate a drug-trafficking and money laundering ring from inside the facility, The Washington Post reports. Hogan said it "makes no sense to keep this deplorable facility open. ... The practice of continuously dumping hard-earned taxpayer money into this disastrous facility will not continue under my watch," and pinned the center's woes on previous administrations, who "ignored" what was going on.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Democratic state lawmakers and union officials criticized Hogan for not discussing the shutdown with them before it was announced. Advocates like David Fathi, director of the ACLU's National Prison Project, told the Post it's a move in the right direction, but won't solve a host of other problems. "This critical step...will have no impact on the dangerous physical conditions and shockingly deficient medical and mental health care in the jail facilities that will remain open," he said.

To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.