Minimum security inmates are being transferred to work at the Jessup House of Correction, sources have told The Examiner, causing concern among corrections officers that the practice is unsafe.
Ron Bailey, executive director of the correction officer union, said his members are against transferring prisoners to work at the “Cut,” but that deteriorating conditions at the facility made it necessary to use more inmates from other prisons.
“Normally the prisoners who are at the facility do the work,” Bailey said. “But the inmates at Jessup are under constant lockdown, so they?re bringing in minimum-security prisoners to work,” he said.
This means, Bailey said, that prisoners serving time for minor crimes are mixing with the state?s most dangerous criminals.
“Officers feel that the inmates at high-level security try to pressure the lower-level security prisoners to bring in contraband,” he said.
“They are very concerned and are against the practice,” he said.
But George Gregory, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Correction, said using pre-release ? or minimum-security ? inmates is normal procedure.
“They are assigned sanitation details. This is nothing new; pre-release inmates always did sanitation work at the Maryland House of Correction,” George said.
The mother of an inmate at the Jessup Pre-Release Unit, who asked to be identified only as Mary for fear of retribution, said her son told her nonviolent inmates are scared, and are being asked to do increasingly dangerous work.
“He?s been told it?s because they?re short of staff at the House of Correction,” Mary said.
“All of them decided to picket two weeks ago,” she said. “They feel if it?s not safe for guards, then it?s not safe for them to work in a prison they don?t know.”
The Maryland House of Correction in Jessup has been plagued by violence in 2006. Correction Officer David McGuinn, 42, was stabbed to death by inmates on July 26.
Three inmates also have died under suspicious circumstances this year. On Sunday, a guard was stabbed on the way to breakfast; he was treated for non-life threatening injuries and released.
