Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) is a government agency of the State of Maryland that performs a number of functions,[1] including the operation of state prisons. It has its headquarters in Towson, Maryland, an unincorporated community that is also the seat of Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, located north of Maryland's largest city of Baltimore. Additional offices for correctional institutions supervision are located on Reisterstown Road in northwest Baltimore.[2]

Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services
Jurisdictional structure
Operations jurisdictionMaryland, USA
Map of Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services's jurisdiction
General nature
Operational structure
HeadquartersBaltimore, Maryland
Agency executive
  • Carolyn J. Scruggs, Secretary
Website

Organizational units

Some of the agencies contained within the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services include:

  • Criminal Injuries Compensation Board
  • Division of Capital Construction and Facilities Maintenance
  • Division of Correction
  • Division of Parole and Probation
  • Division of Pretrial Detention and Services (operates the former Baltimore City Jail - now the Baltimore City Detention Center and the pre-trial release programs in the city of Baltimore)
  • Emergency Number Systems Board[3]
  • Handgun Permit Review Board
  • Inmate Grievance Office
  • Internal Investigative Division
  • Information Technology and Communications Division
  • Maryland Correctional Enterprises
  • Maryland Parole Commission
  • Office of the Inspector General
  • Office of Planning, Policy, Regulations, and Statistics
  • Office of the Secretary
  • Police and Correctional Training Commissions
  • Public Information Office
  • Sundry Claims Board

Facilities
Chesapeake Detention Facility on East Madison Street, east of The Fallsway across from the old historic Maryland Penitentiary and the adjacent Baltimore City Jail / Baltimore City Detention Center in Baltimore, (formerly "SuperMax").

Associated facilities

Closed facilities

Proposed facilities

Death row

The "Death Row" for men was in the North Branch Correctional Institution in Western Maryland's Cumberland area. The execution chamber is in the Metropolitan Transition Center (the former Maryland Penitentiary). The five men who were on the State's "death row" were moved in June 2010 from the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center.[4] In December 2014, former Governor Martin O'Malley commuted the sentences of all Maryland death row inmates to life sentences.[5]

Black Guerrilla Family

In 2009, a federal indictment under the RICO Act charges that the Black Guerrilla Family gang was active in a number of facilities, including North Branch Correctional Institution, Western Correctional Institution, Eastern Correctional Institution, Roxbury Correctional Institution, Maryland Correctional Institution – Jessup, Maryland Correctional Institution – Hagerstown, Baltimore City Correctional Center, and Metropolitan Transition Center, and the Baltimore City Detention Center (formerly and also known as the Baltimore City Jail).

The gang had a statewide "supreme commander" as well as subordinate commanders in each facility. These leaders were assisted by other gang officials dubbed ministers of intelligence, justice, defense and education. These organizations enforced a code of conduct and smuggled contraband into the facilities.[6]

Another prison gang, this one of mostly white prisoners, known as "D.M.I." Dead Man Incorporated was founded in Maryland prisons in 2001 or 2002 as an offshoot of the Black Guerrilla Family.

Fallen officers

Since the establishment of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, five officers have died while on duty.[7]

See also

National:

References
  1. About the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services
  2. Home page. Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Retrieved on December 7, 2009.
  3. Annotated Code of Maryland, Public Safety Article, § 1-305
  4. Calvert, Scott and Kate Smith. "Death row inmates transferred to W. Maryland Archived 2012-12-05 at archive.today." The Baltimore Sun. June 25, 2010. Retrieved on September 22, 2010.
  5. Blinder, Alan (December 31, 2014). "Maryland Governor Commutes Death Sentences, Emptying Death Row". The New York Times. Retrieved December 31, 2014.
  6. Federal indictment United States of America vs Eric Brown et al.
  7. The Officer Down Memorial Page
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