Overview
- A third-party engineering consultant warned that continued occupancy posed an imminent risk, prompting Public Safety and General Services officials to declare the MRDCC facility unsafe.
- Roughly 400 incarcerated people and 260 staff began moving Thursday under an immediate, orderly depopulation plan.
- Most pretrial detainees are going to Baltimore’s Metropolitan Transition Center, with women to the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, men with emerging needs to Chesapeake Detention Facility, and the remainder to Jessup Correctional Institution.
- Officials say the transfer is not a final closure, and the facility’s future will hinge on further engineering findings that outline any critical repairs needed.
- The shift highlights strain across Maryland’s aging corrections system, including a planned closure of the 1981-era Jessup prison and a reported heating failure affecting more than 60 youths at Baltimore’s Youth Detention Center.