Nancy Moran

Delegate Timothy F. Maloney
313 Lowe House Office Building
Annapolis, Maryland 21401

Dear Mr. Maloney:

Your letter of January 6, 1993 describing the changes in the subcommittees of House Appropriations came as a surprise and created initial misgivings. You had been Chairman of the Law Enforcement Subcommittee for as long as I had been active in the field of corrections. Your absence and the loss of the other members will be deeply felt.

I have been and will be sharing your letter with the inmate leadership of the Division of Correction, including persons in Baltimore, Jessup, Hagerstown and the recently-constructed medium-security prison on the Eastern Shore, as well as the corps of volunteers and other activists in this area. Too often those of us involved with the Division forget that the local detention centers and the crimes they address occupy a major part of the State's attention in the realm of criminal justice. We also tend to perceive that the State Police is a competing interest both at budget time and in the operations of the Office of the Secretary.

The past 15 years have been long and harrowing, largely because of the unprecedented and massive influx of new prison residents throughout the period. Population pressures have sapped the energies as well as the budgets of prison authorities. There have been significant declines in basic services, schools and libraries, and housing and recreation space. At this writing, the Secretary is attempting to minimize a $47+ million health care budget by seeking legislative authority to charge inmates fees for services, and Correctional Education, now chronically in peril, faces another season of possible elimination altogether.

The murder of the correctional officer in October, 1984 was a major turning point from a number of perspectives. Not only did it lead to major building projects, the first of which was the Supermax adjacent to the Penitentiary Hospital in Baltimore City and the next was the ambitious 2,500-bed prison in Somerset County (both during Arnold Hopkins' tenure as Commissioner). Also during this period, Division Headquarters received the support and encouragement to reorganize (to produce its first professional organization chart), and to make great strides in the development of its regulations, its management and control of its component institutions as well as in standardization and professionalism of procedures and standards throughout the system.

Expansion of the physical plant since the middle of the 1980s has been at great cost and under severe political strain. "Not in my backyard" has meant overbuilding in both Baltimore and Jessup (with the "Annex" buildings crowding the campus of the House of Correction), temporary shelters and other space now "permanent" in Hagerstown, and finally, the establishment underway of a massive prison complex in Allegany County where racial and cultural differences may outweigh the factor of the geographical distance from the urban centers where most prisoners originate.

Perhaps pursuant to the Governor's "Action Agenda" promulgated in 1987, not long after he took office and under the initiative of Bishop Robinson, a metropolitan service center building in Baltimore City is already finished and awaiting opening during the summer of this year. It is my understanding that a 420-bed adjunct is yet to be constructed pending demolition of the present South Wing of the Penitentiary. Both facilities will be nestled in the same city block as the Baltimore City Detention Center, the Penitentiary and the Baltimore Pre-Release Unit and within yards of the Baltimore City Correctional Center and the "SuperMax" (Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center). A setback to the Governor's plans occurred when the Governor was compelled to divert funding to build future facilities that had been slated for inmate vocational programs into the civilian sector.

From my vantage point, among the significant influences that promise to be major factors in corrections at this time and for the foreseeable future include but are not limited to:

• Transition planning and preparation. The Case Management Program has been a step in the right direction, but since programming options are becoming scarcer, appropriate treatment regimens are less and less available. The Division continues to release over half its inmates on a "mandatory release" basis with virtually no effort toward conferring upon them the slightest idea of what to expect. Perhaps the most serious shortcoming on the part of the State is that these inmates are the recidivists of tomorrow and not to recognize this serious need overlooks a great deal of future crimes.

• Budget Allocation: Capitalization of transition and aftercare services. Despite the fact that many millions are being spent to construct new facilities, an operating budget for FY93 in excess of $319 million to grow to $331 million in FY94, and a widely-known average cost of $20,000 per inmate per year, the Commissioner of Correction has had to testify in recent legislative sessions that, among other things, it was impossible from a budgetary standpoint to: recalculate sentences to grant each inmate extra "good time" days (presumably implying that it cost more for the Division to count 5 days a month for a given set of inmates than to incarcerate them for a like period), and that it was impossible from a budgetary standpoint to ensure inmates exiting the Division had in their possession a minimum of $50 if they were not able to earn same while in the Division. A bill which would have granted an exit interview to released inmates was withdrawn from the Judiciary Committee earlier this session. Perhaps it was premature or overly ambitious considering present allocation of resources. That is to say, the dual problems of budget shortfall and repeated crimes may not only reside with the magnitude of the expenditures but in the efficiency of their distribution.

• Disruption, rearrangement, transfer and reclassification of inmates accompanying the construction and opening of new facilities. For example, a large segment of the Penitentiary has already been moved to the new Annex complex on the grounds of the House of Correction, a complex which has a higher security level than the Penitentiary itself. Inmates at the Annex, as opposed to the Penitentiary, can no longer participate in education programs or self-help groups. Also for example, the opening of ECI on the Eastern Shore or the proposed new Allegany facility generally means that inmates lose contact with visitors, family members and volunteers. These events can be demoralizing and punitive, notwithstanding the inmate's own good behavior or point rating on the classification instrument.

• Changes in leadership at the level of Subcommittee, Secretary, Governor and related positions. One example of this are the changes in the Appropriations Committee itself that you described in your letter of January 6th. No longer will Public Safety be coupled with Transportation but with Human Resources. The wholly-new composition of the corrections subcommittee and your own move in chairmanship to Education signal a fundamental departure. Further to these legislative events, Bishop Robinson has made known that he intends to step down at the end of this session, and the Governor will come to the end of his final term by the end of next year. The fact that so many changes will be occurring in such a short period of time provokes a sense of uncertainty in direction and insecurity as to what the future will bring, if not opportunity for progress and fresh perspectives.

• The continuing role of the death penalty issue. While affecting only 12 of an estimated 20,000 inmates in the State system and perhaps adding another handful in the coming few years, the death penalty, of all other issues and problems, galvanizes and focuses public opinion and dominates perceptions of crime and the culpability of convicted persons. In an emotion-laden climate, pressure to expand by building or to take other financially-debatable measures is very great and potentially or actually not in the best long- or even short-term interests of the State.

In conclusion, the decade and a half of your chairmanship were probably the most challenging and obstacle-laden for corrections in this century. Under your leadership and with your determination and methodical approach, you succeeded in coordinating and motivating disparate and divergent issues and factions. If you can bring these same qualities to bear on your new subcommittee assignment, the state of Education in Maryland and the welfare of all of us will be well served.

I wish you all the success your new venture can bring and look forward to seeing your influence on the Capital Budget subcommittee.

cc: Delegate Norman Conway
Mr. Richard A. Lanham, Sr.
Mr. Bishop Robinson
Governor William Donald Schaefer