The number of inmates at Montgomery County’s main jail has grown by nearly 7 percent thanks partly to a changing criminal landscape that includes more gang members and pack robberies, according to county officials.
The population at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds averaged 731 inmates during the year ending in August, which is about 46 inmates higher than the same period the previous year and about a 15 percent jump from the average in 2005. The facility holds inmates awaiting trial and those sentenced to up to 18 months in prison.
Arthur Wallenstein, director of the Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation, said the growing numbers are due to an increase in gang activity and a trend of pack robberies, which police describe as crimes committed mostly by groups of young men who steal cash or electronic devices from individuals by force or threat of force.
“The police are bringing in multiple defendants in robbery crimes that historically there have only been one defendant,” Wallenstein said.
A “significant number” of pack robberies include gang members, according to Capt. David Gillespie, head of the county’s special investigations division.
Police identified 10 gang-related robberies in the first quarter of this year and 46 last year, according to statistics. But Gillespie said the department doesn’t always have enough evidence to identify gang-related pack robberies as such.
The Montgomery County Correctional Facility has enough beds to hold 1,028 inmates, but the new trends of group arrests mean the facility is stretched by demands to keep suspects or gang members separate from each other, Wallenstein said.
The facility houses about 140 members of local and national gangs, many of whom need to be kept separate for safety reasons, Wallenstein said. He added that there are about 100 requests from the State’s Attorney’s Office and the police department to keep inmates who may provide state’s evidence away from the inmates they may testify against.
Wallenstein said keeping inmates separated requires “constant” supervision. The county also has had to send between five and 10 prisoners to other jails, including state prisons, to honor those requests in the last year, according to county data.
Those kind of actions don’t constitute a “crisis,” Wallenstein said, but do mean that the county needs to start looking at the need for additional jail beds.
