State Opens Gates Of Baltimore Jail To Show Conditions Inside
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The state has moved detainees out of the city detention center, and Thursday, it opened the gates to show the deplorable conditions inside.
Pat Warren reports on the future of the facility.
The Baltimore City Detention Center became notorious for the run of the Black Guerrilla Family, and now, that part of the city's jail system is shut down.
You have to see it to believe it, that until this week, people were living there, sleeping three steps away from the toilet, two people to a cell.
"You saw it. It's obvious why we closed that part of this jail," said Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Stephen Moyer.
It's where defendants, charged but not convicted, waited to to go to trial and where some convicted served their sentences stacked on top of each other with halls barely wide enough for two people at a time.
"This building needed to go. After the fifth time I came through here, I could barely stomach it," said Moyer.
"Now, prison isn't a good place for anybody, but people deserve better conditions than what that building offered," he continued.
Detainees have been moved to a newer building at the facility, while the state moves forward on plans to level the old.
The immediate plan is for the wrecking ball, pending approval of the General Assembly.
The men's detention facility dates back to the Civil War.