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Notorious Prison Closed
Maryland has officially closed a 129-year-old maximum-security prison that had become notoriously known for its dark, hard-to-guard halls, broken locks and inmate violence. Gitmo? The state quietly moved about 840 inmates in recent weeks from the 19th-century-built Maryland House of Correction, which stank of long and crowded occupation even with its tiny and tattered cells empty as state officials officially announced the closing inside on Monday. Attorneys for prisoners' rights and union officials representing correctional officers cheered the decision to close the prison. The average daily population last year was 1,261. Stephen Meehan, an attorney for Prisoner Rights Information System of Maryland, called it "an ancient prison" that lawyers and investigators he worked with were afraid to enter. Until the last inmates left Saturday night, the prison had been in continuous use since it was built in 1878, state correction officials said.  O'Malley compared the banks of cells stacked on top of each other to something out of an old James Cagney gangster movie, with horrifically real consequences for correctional officers who struggled with poor visibility to contain aggressive inmates ready to pounce and stab. Sorry; I couldn't find a Cagney pic. "The whole design of this place is something that dates to just after the Civil War and it's no way for us to be able to protect our correctional officers or inmates, and we have to do both," O'Malley said. Posted by: Bobby 2007-03-20 |
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