Revamp Planned At Baltimore Detention Complex
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- Gov. Larry Hogan's administration is planning a major revamping of Baltimore's detention complex by tearing down more than a dozen old buildings and consolidating services in a large modern facility, administration officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The governor's plan would cost about $482 million over five years, compared to a previous plan estimated at about $780 million over 13 years, said David Brinkley, the governor's budget secretary. A big part of the savings comes from consolidating services like food preparation now done in multiple buildings for men and women.
"You're not integrating men and women, but the common use areas like food preparation, the medical facilities, the visitation facilities when people come to visit the inmates, those sorts of things can be common use, and so we're able to take it from a 13-year scope down to five years -- $780 million down to $482 million," Brinkley said.
Officials say the plan is aimed at resolving litigation over conditions at detention facilities in the city. In November, the state agreed to make major improvements after agreeing to a settlement in a federal lawsuit over squalid conditions. While the case had been settled in 1993, it was reopened in June after the Public Justice Center and the ACLU argued that conditions were still substandard.
Hogan, a Republican, closed the dangerously decrepit Baltimore City Detention last year, but the campus around it includes other old buildings housing detainees.
"The new building will contain approximately 90,000 square feet of medical treatment space and the medical treatment of detainees has been a major subject of the litigation," said David Bezanson, assistant secretary for capital programs at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. "It will have a completely new food service process -- 25,000-square-feet of food service -- to meet all of the modern standards. The housing will meet modern (American Correctional Association) standards for housing, which the old facility was not able to meet."
The new building would be about 800,000 square feet, and it would have six levels, Bezanson said. It also will have space for education and drug treatment programs.
"We're going to consolidate the traffic to and from court from one location, the food service from one location, the medical services from within the same structure, so this will be a state-of-the-art modern detention center, and it will have the appropriate program space to serve all the needs of this population," Bezanson said.
The facility would have space for 2,720 detainees -- 2,304 men and 416 women, Bezanson said. That's down from previously planned space for 3,820, but the numbers of detainees and inmates have been trending down.
Overall, about 16 structures -- some dating to the 19th century -- will be demolished, including eight that have served detainees, under the plan. The 900-bed Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center next to the detention center will remain in operation.
The governor has included $18.3 million in the state's capital budget for the design of the new building to get the plan started. Another $16 million has been set aside to demolish old buildings. The General Assembly would need to approve of the items in the capital budget for the project to move forward.
Two years of demolition would be needed under the plan. Building on the new project could begin in May 2018 and be completed in 2021.
(Copyright 2016 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)