Gov. Martin O?Malley went to prison Monday and received a present.
The guards gave him his first ball-cap since becoming governor, a black Correctional Officer hat that belies O?Malley?s white-hat status as someone they hope will cure what ails the prison system.
“They feel that help is on the way,” said Del. John Donoghue, a Washington County Democrat. He was among 10 elected officials attending the meeting between O?Malley, the guards and top corrections officials at the Maryland Correctional Training Center outside Hagerstown. Reporters were only permitted to hear opening remarks by the governor and his new public safety secretary, Gary Maynard.
“It showed the commitment on his part to listen to correctional officers,” said Del. Robert McKee, a Williamsport Republican. “They were very candid with him about their concerns, even with their supervisors present. Those concerns can ultimately change policies.”
Donoghue?s and McKee?s district includes one of the largest concentrations of prisoners in the state. On a mile-stretch of rural road, 7,000 prisoners are held in three major institutions that employ thousands of local residents as guards and support personnel. A Hagerstown prison guard was killed with his own gun in January 2006, one of two Maryland correctional officers killed last year, the first in more than 20 years.
O?Malley?s visit was meant to illustrate both his commitment to the safety of the public and the guards and to enhancing education, drug and counseling programs for inmates. The Maryland Correctional Training Center, Maryland?s second largest prison with 2,730 inmates, is getting $32 million in O?Malley?s budget to build a 384-bed inmate housing unit to replace a 25-year-old “temporary” hut. The governor also plans on spending $9 million to refurbish other units, and he is asking for an additional $7 million to hire 155 new correctional officers, about half of them for the Hagerstown-area prisons.
“So many officers are worn down by forced overtime,” O?Malley said. “What we need to do is change the mind-set,” he said. “We ought to get out of the zero-sum game,” where spending on staffing is cut to increase money for inmate programs.
At the meeting with a dozen or so officers, Maynard told them, “Gov. O?Malley is really focused on public safety and the job you do. It took me about five minutes in the interview to figure out how passionate he was about it.”
Maynard has run the prison systems in Iowa and three other states. “The perception is that the system is broken” in Maryland, he said, but “that?s not my perception.” He said the state has “a very good system.”
O?Malley emphasized the need to work on the prison system in a bipartisan way. House Minority Whip Christopher Shank, who also represents the Hagerstown area, said, “I look forward to that cooperation. I endorse everything he said today.”
O?Malley admitted that there might some skepticism among the officers. “Yeah, we?ve heard that before” he could imagine them saying. “We?re going to make as much progress as we can, as quickly as we can.”
