Fathi added that “dangerous physical conditions and shockingly deficient medical and mental health care” exist in many jail facilities that remain open.
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“The decision to close the Men’s Detention Center is a very positive step and decades overdue”, said Debra Gardner, legal director for the Public Justice Center. “The Women’s Detention Center is fraught with safety problems as well, and our concerns about health care access are for the whole complex”. He called the anomaly a “phony political spin on a prison culture created by an utter failure in leadership”.
Pictures of the “flaperon” show that it is missing its drive arm, which directed up-down movement – but there appears to be relatively mild damage at the location where the drive arm tore away, said William Waldock, a former U.S. Coast Guard officer and a professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, who teaches aircraft search and rescue.
“The facility was built in 1859, so we’re hopeful that moving correctional officers and the people they’re charged with overseeing to modern facilities improves safety”, Pittman said.
Hogan also said all current staff at the facility would be moved to other positions and all detainees and prisoners there would be moved to other institutions close by.
The Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center said closing the jail represents an “opportunity for the state to re-evaluate its spending priorities”.
Still, advocates anxious about where displaced inmates would be housed.
The jail was in constant need of repairs, and corrections officials have long pushed for a better facility.
GARDNER: It’s inhumane. It’s insufferable.
“We know it’s the right decision”, he said.
Cheryl E. Goldschmitt, a paralegal from Burtonsville, praised the governor. A coroner said Friday she was strangled and suffered blunt force trauma to the head. The groups allege inmates suffering from illnesses such as HIV and diabetes were denied life-sustaining prescription medication. The facility being shuttered now holds 145 men awaiting trial, highlighting a larger issue across Baltimore City.
Gardner said the lawsuit over jail conditions is scheduled to be back in court in December. “I’m concerned closing down prison space will lead to the early release of hardened criminals”.
“The practice of continuously dumping hard-earned taxpayer money into this disastrous facility will not continue under my watch”, said Hogan in a press conference.
Senator Pugh says she was assured by the administration that employees would not lose their jobs as a result of the closure.
“We thought it could be done more expeditiously”, said Hogan. The governor “should not only have shared this information with the affected stakeholders, but he should have asked for their learned input”, the union said in a statement.
But Hogan, who took office in January, said that’s the extent to which he is following any plan laid out by his predecessor. Baltimore’s jail population has dipped in recent years, making room elsewhere for the inmates from the detention center.
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Hinnant reported from Paris; Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, Ian Mader in Beijing, Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Joan Lowy and Seth Borenstein in Washington; and Greg Keller in Toulouse, France, contributed.
