Prison still having difficult time recruiting

State prison officials are continuing to struggle to recruit prison guards for the complex of Jessup prisons where a guard was stabbed Friday, the second correctional officer stabbed there in the last year.

Corrections Secretary Gary Maynard told a Senate budget committee Monday that there are currently 165 vacancies for prison guards in the Jessup area of Anne Arundel and Howard counties. “It is extremely difficult to recruit people” when conditions are unsafe, said Maynard, who has been on the job only four weeks. This is especially true at an outdated prison such as the House of Correction, which was first built in the 1870s.