Some Serious Problems At Our Middle River Jail

I recently presented the following to our Community Criminal Justice Board, then submitted it as an op ed piece which appeared in today's Daily News-Record:

Three years have passed since our City and County negotiated a buy-in with Middle River Regional Jail due to a 600% increase in the number of people incarcerated in our local facility since it was built in 1885. Meanwhile our population had grown by only 25%.

At any rate, it would seem appropriate to now have a committee or commission be appointed to review how our arrangement with them could be improved. 

At the time, many of wished the long standing lease option we already had with MRRJ could have simply continued until we were able to implement many of the Mosley Architects’ recommendations and get our incarceration rates down to a more reasonable number or until we could build something like a proposed “Judge John Paul Honor Camp” as a rehabilitation, treatment and work release center for non-violent inmates. 

In the meantime, here are some of the concerns about Middle River many of us keep hearing and that we believe call for such a review:

1. When inmates from here are transferred to MRRJ, their families immediately have to pay three times as much for their “keep fee”, to the tune of over $1000 a year. This a burdensome and arbitrary charge that innocent family members from our area should not be required to pay just because, through no fault of their own, their loved ones are moved to another location.

2. When that transfer is made, whatever commissary or clothing items (food, hygiene products, socks, underwear, etc.) an inmate has acquired are not allowed to be transferred, so again it is family members who need to pay for new and high priced items to replace them, another hardship.

3. MRRJ has inmates on lockdown for 18 hours a day, not for disciplinary reasons but simply because that requires fewer staff members. This is inhumane and contrary to standard jail practice.

4. Complaints about medical care have long been a matter of concern. I understand we have never done an independent investigation into some of the inmate deaths documented in the NBC 29 documentary two years ago, or the quality and adequacy of medical care in general, issues over which we could face liability. Meanwhile, over the past decades MRRJ has consistently underspent its medical budgets by thousands of dollars.

5. All inmates complain about jail food, but there is a clear difference between the quality and quantity of food served at MRRJ (reports of moldy bread, stone bits in lentils. etc.), compared to the quality of meals served at our local jail. As long as we share ownership of MRRJ, we should be able to expect comparable levels of care and service.

Who in the combined authority of city and county could look into these issues on behalf of concerned citizens in our community?