State prisons chief quits

In the wake of the murder of two prison guards this year, Frank Sizer, the commissioner of the Maryland division of correction, has resigned. Nicole Fuller of the Sun suggests that the abruptness of the resignation may be tied to Gov. Bob Ehrlich's reelection hopes:

Sizer had come to be regarded as a political liability for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Republican legislators from Western Maryland, where several state prisons are located, called publicly for Sizer's ouster after a correctional officer was killed in January while guarding an inmate at a hospital in Hagerstown. The clamor for Sizer's removal grew after a second correction officer was stabbed to death in July.

Some correctional officers from Ehrlich political strongholds in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore had said that they would not vote to re-elect him unless he makes top-level changes in prison administration.

Later in the article, the head of a prison guards' union is quoted as saying that Public Safety Secretary Mary Ann Saar was looking for a fall guy, not just for the two guards' deaths, but also increasing violence among inmates, and Sizer fit the bill.

The problems facing Maryland prisons, however, are more fundamental. Simply put, there are too many inmates, not enough guards, and outdated facilities -- the House of Correction in Jessup, where the second guard was killed, dates back to 1878! Jordan Barab has more.

UPDATE: The current incentives for becoming a prison guard are also inadequate, as the Sun points out (Obselete link: Google maryland+prison+staffing for the cache). And this doesn't even get into the problems of filling prisons with minor drug offenders and the lack of a coherent policy on the very purpose of imprisonment. Are we punishing people, or trying to reform them? If the latter, we're surely not doing a very good job.

Tags: Maryland, prisons, guards, Bob Ehrlich