By Sam Janesch
Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE — Gov. Wes Moore’s administration is not moving quickly enough to address the depleted workforce and poor conditions in state prisons after years of slowed hiring and deferred maintenance, the union representing correctional employees said Wednesday.
The Democratic governor has vowed since he entered office almost two years ago to “rebuild state government” and improve both wages and conditions for employees.
But the current pace of change has left a dangerous situation in both adult and juvenile prisons across the state, employees and union leaders said.
“I’ve seen our staffing crisis build to the point that we can no longer ignore,” John Feeley, an officer at the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown, said during a news conference near the facility Wednesday. “Every day at the beginning of our shifts we don’t know if we’re going to be able to go home at the end of the night.”
High employee vacancy rates and maintenance issues related to run-down prisons in Maryland have been ongoing for years. Employees and union leaders previously acknowledged an improvement under Moore but, on Wednesday, they also spoke about a lack of urgency around the issue.
“There’s not a sufficient amount of action on it,” Patrick Moran, president of Maryland’s chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ( AFSCME ), said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun after the news conference.
A year and a half ago, AFSCME released a report identifying a need for about 3,400 additional correctional officers in order to safely operate the prisons. A separate analysis from a firm contracted by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services found the agency needed about 2,500 more positions.
Moran said the union’s estimate has not changed. Despite the number of hires rising, departures and the loss of more experienced officers have led to unstable conditions.
“Studies have been done that clearly state that thousands of people need to be hired in various agencies,” said Moran, whose union represents more than 5,300 positions available for corrections employees, though about 600 are vacant. “It doesn’t seem like that’s been budgeted for. It doesn’t seem like that’s a priority in providing resources, and it needs to be. It needs to be so people are safe when they’re going to work.”
A recent study analyzed data on the number of COs and the number of prisoners in each state. Watch the video below to see which states have the most understaffed prisons.
Moran did not criticize Moore by name, and he echoed previous sentiments that the issues stem from Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration. (The union endorsed Hogan’s opponent, Democrat Angela Alsobrooks, in the U.S. Senate race on Tuesday.)
But Moran, in an interview, referenced one of Moore’s most prominent sayings, that he will “make this Maryland’s decade.”
“I hear again and again, ‘This is Maryland’s time,’” Moran said. “Let’s make it Maryland’s time.”
Moore spokesman Carter Elliott IV said in a statement the administration “has worked day and night to fix the overwhelming staffing shortages left by the previous administration and the budgetary constraints created by a lack of economic momentum in the eight years prior to Gov. Moore’s inauguration.”
He pointed to a reduction in the vacancy rate for corrections employees, from 14.4% in February 2023 to 10.7% in May of this year, and said Moore will continue speaking with AFSCME about how to address the problems while under the state’s budget constraints.
At the news conference, workers gathered outside of the Western Maryland Children’s Center in Hagerstown, a 24-bed maximum security detention center that was converted to an all-girls facility in October 2023.
A recent report issued by the state’s Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit outlined issues at that center due to severe understaffing, including a lack of experience and expertise. Girls have been locked in their cells for extended periods. Outdoor green space, classroom space and office space is limited. And in the second quarter of this year, the center had the “highest rate of facility-based mechanical restraint use on youth” out of all juvenile detention centers in the state, according to the report.
“Staff at WMCC are often in crisis mode and burnout levels are high,” the report stated. “Incident numbers are high and serious safety concerns among both staff and youth are prevalent.”
Those who spoke out Wednesday talked of that burnout, of unworkably long shifts and little training leading to violent incidents — all in facilities that lack basics like air conditioning and radios that can transmit from one side of the building to the other.
Denise Henderson Johnson, a transportation officer at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center and a local union chapter president, said Department of Juvenile Services staff are working four or five double shifts per week. She said she has heard from staff who have been assaulted because of the inadequate staff numbers. Union leaders said the corrections agency reported 3,166 assaults in the prison system in the fiscal year that ended June 30 , a figure that includes inmates assaulting other inmates and inmates assaulting staff.
“We’re human beings with lives outside of work that have a right to work in a safe environment,” Johnson said at the news conference. “We care deeply about the youth we are tasked with taking care of, but we cannot successfully transform young people’s lives if we do not have the staff, facilities and resources to do so.”
Moran said resources are sorely lacking — a reality that isn’t easily resolved as state officials stare down a multi-billion-dollar deficit in the coming years and billions of dollars planned for ambitious plans around education, the environment and transportation.
Moore’s budget proposals have so far sought to address those challenges by cutting from existing programs, borrowing more and pulling from the state’s rainy day fund.
Advocates like those in the public employees union have sought more aggressive revenue-raising measures. A plan they backed during the annual 90-day legislative session earlier this year would have, they said, raised $1.6 billion mostly by expanding taxes on wealthier households and corporations. Called the Fair Share for Maryland Act, the money would have gone toward a variety of state needs, including filling state employee vacancies.
Moore did not support that plan, but advocates have indicated they will pursue all revenue options again when the General Assembly reconvenes in January.
“Now is not the time for more paper and hollow plans that lack follow-through,” Moran said. “Now is the time for action. We need action. We’ve earned action and we deserve action.”
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