Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said he plans to immediately close a Baltimore jail where corruption was so bad just two years ago that inmates were said to run the facility.
“This facility is done. We will not be using it again,” Mr. Hogan said Thursday at a press conference held outside the Baltimore City Detention Center.
The 156-year-old jail houses hundreds of inmates awaiting trial or serving short sentences and the governor said those individuals would be transferred shortly to other area facilities. He declined to say exactly where or when the inmates would be moved for security reasons.
The closure of the jail, which the state took over from the city in 1991, will save Maryland between $10 million and $15 million annually, Mr. Hogan said.
The decision to close the jail comes after a federal investigation in 2013 uncovered corruption at the jail, including a drug-smuggling ring run by inmates.
The federal investigation led to convictions of 40 people involved in the ring, including jail guards who carried on sexual relationships with inmates and helped smuggle drugs into the facility. The inmate at the center of the investigation, Black Guerrilla Family leader Tavon White, had impregnated four corrections officers at the jail.
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Mr. Hogan, a Republican who took office in January, said the widespread corruption was a black eye for the state and criticized his predecessor, Democrat Martin O’Malley’s failure to take immediate action to close the jail following the revelations. In addition to the corruption uncovered at the jail, Mr. Hogan said the poor conditions at the old facility contributed to safety concerns there.
“Frankly the Baltimore City Detention Center is a disgrace and its conditions are horrendous,” he said, describing blind corners that were hazardous to corrections officers and flooding and sewage issues that created substandard living conditions for inmates.
The move to close the jail was welcomed by corrections officials.
“That facility was built in 1859, so we are hopeful that moving to newer, more updated facilities will improve safety,” said Jeff Pittman, a spokesman for the Maryland branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The announcement also comes a day after analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts detailed declines in prison admissions in the state. Maryland’s prison admissions fell 19 percent over the last decade, and the state’s prison population dropped by 5 percent to 21,326 inmates total.
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