A new Baltimore City jail for women and children should fix many of the civil rights problems at the Baltimore City Detention Center, state officials said Sunday.
“We are going to build a new juvenile and women?s facility,” said Mark Vernarelli, a prison system spokesman. “That will take care of a lot of the problems when that?s built. We?re certainly not naive enough to think everything?s hunky-dory. The state has been working as hard as we can.”
The new jail is not expected to open for at least several years, Vernarelli said.
The U.S. Department of Justice last week released an agreement with the state of Maryland to improve the detention center.
The agreement follows the federal agency?s investigation of the facility, which found “substantial civil rights violations,” according to the Department of Justice.
The department in 2002 found that city jail officials are “deliberately indifferent to inmates? serious medical and mental health needs, persons confined suffer harm or the risk of serious harm from deficiencies in the facility?s fire safety protections and sanitation, and juveniles detained at the facility are not kept safe from potential harm by adult inmates,” according to the agreement.
The agreement means the problems will be fixed, federal officials said.
“I appreciate Maryland?s commitment to improve conditions at the jail and look forward to the implementation of this important agreement,” said Wan J. Kim, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Vernarelli said Maryland officials are also eager to improve the jail.
“There?s no acrimony here,” he said. “The reason it was signed now is that [Department Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services Mary Ann Saar] thought it was important to finish it so it wouldn?t be left for the new administration.”
Maryland officials have fixed many of the problems cited in the report, such as improving heating and cooling issues, and the new jail will help with fixing the others, Vernarelli said.
The new jail will be on the south side of Madison Street, he said.
Coming up short
The U.S. Department of Justice investigation identified the following problems at the Baltimore City Detention Center:
» Inadequate medical and mental health care
» Inadequate security in adult and juvenile detention practices
» Inadequate fire safety and environmental health conditions
» Inadequate provision of special education services
