‘Constant and indefinite lockdowns’: Advocates for MD prisoners ask AG, DPSCS to address staffing shortages

Listen to this article

Advocates for prisoners in Maryland’s correctional facilities have asked the state’s attorney general and secretary for the Department of Public Safety and Correction Services to address staffing shortages that advocates say has led to “constant and indefinite lockdowns” for prisoners that deprive them of essential services and programs in violation of their constitutional rights.

In a letter sent last week to Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown and DPSCS Secretary Carolyn Scruggs, Prisoner Rights Information System of Maryland wrote many Maryland Division of Correction facilities regularly operate on a 23-and-1 schedule, limiting prisoners to one hour outside their cells each day and effectively denying them of the opportunity to receive education, recreation, religious programming, recovery support, and other programs.

“These conditions pose undeniable risks to [prisoners’] health and well-being, and when worsened by under-staffing, also result in inadequate medical and mental health care,” counsel for PRISM wrote.

PRISM asked DPSCS to consider decarcerating strategies, such as early release tools for low-risk individuals and the revival and creation of certain credit programs that have been used by DPSCS in the past. The letter asked Brown and Scruggs’ offices to respond by Sept. 5.

A spokesperson for the Maryland Office of the Attorney General said the office has “received the letter and are reviewing.”

DPSCS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Tori Devore, whose Baltimore-based firm Castelli + Devore works with PRISM under contract, said PRISM is seeking a change in Maryland prisoners’ everyday conditions at state correctional facilities.

Devore described the facilities’ conditions and DPSCS staffing shortages as a systemic problem that should be “acknowledged as the emergency that it is by the governor’s office.”

“As PRISM’s role to assist people in filing a claim when they present us with allegations that would violate their constitutional rights, the number of reports we’ve received recently that do rise to that level has been more than in the past for sure,” Devore said, noting more than 10 individual clients recently wrote to PRISM, with many writing on behalf of their 300-plus member housing units.

Staffing concerns and complaints about conditions at Maryland’s correctional facilities are not novel.

In May last year, inmates at the Baltimore jail sought release after a sewage pipe clogged, leaving them without access to running water or functioning toilets and showers for at least two days. In 2023, the Public Information Act Compliance Board found DPSCS “seemingly ignored” multiple complaints filed before the board, determining the department violated Maryland’s Public Information Act in some cases.

Also in 2023, union leaders representing Maryland’s correctional officers published a report urging the state to hire more than 3,400 officers to address shortages at the state’s correctional institutions. According to a 2025 DPSCS budget overview report, the correctional officer vacancy rate rose from 11.1% in January 2023 to 12.7% in December 2023. DPSCS in the report said it “made progress in administrative hiring” that is expected to decrease turnover expectancy.

Just last month, the Maryland Supreme Court waded into the discussion, ruling against DPSCS’ interpretation of diminution and time-served credits for incarcerated individuals and delivering relief to inmates seeking to shorten their prison sentences.

Patrick Moran, president of AFSCME Maryland Council 3, said the union for Maryland’s correctional officers has repeatedly raised concerns about DPSCS’ staffing to the department.

“Our union has continued to sound the alarm on this issue that dangerously low staffing levels in Maryland’s correctional facilities are an injustice and dangerous to both staff and inmates,” Moran said. “DPSCS is touting progress, but they are not felt on the ground, at all.”

Moran said DPSCS consistently relies on “massive amounts of overtime” to make up for vacancies, but stressed rehabilitation for prisoners is not possible without services and programs that require adequate staffing.

Devore said the high court’s rulings last month that struck down DPSCS policies that lengthened prisoners’ terms of confinement underscores that the department lacks the resources to adequately confine as many individuals as they are.

“Implementing and crafting policies to lengthen people’s terms while this is what the inside looks like is just really frustrating and upsetting to anyone who works in this realm,” Devore said.