Injustice for Incarcerated Women in Maryland after State Cuts Funds for Prerelease Facility

The Maryland Gender-Responsive Prerelease Act, which mandates the development of a prerelease facility for incarcerated women, was initially vetoed by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan in May 2020. That veto was later overridden by a simple majority in February 2021. Yet, as reported by Eddie Conway and Charles Hopkins for The Real News Network, hundreds of imprisoned women are still being denied access to a prerelease facility, an essential program which provides aid and resources for individuals’ reintegration into society.

In 2021, Congress appropriated $1.5 million for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) to construct a women’s prerelease facility. However, in an interview with The Real News Network, the executive director of Out For Justice, Nicole Hanson-Mundell, shared that DPSCS have yet to spend one dime of the allocated $1.5 million toward meeting this goal. Hanson-Mundell and other advocates are now attending numerous budget hearings involving the Department of Corrections in order to ensure adequate funding is guaranteed toward the creation of a prerelease facility for incarcerated women in Maryland.

According to Baltimore-based organization Out For Justice, incarcerated males in Maryland “have nine separate prerelease and minimum security facilities while women have zero.”

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, prisons have been home to a majority of the largest, single-site outbreaks. These outbreaks, on top of the preexisting stresses in correctional facilities, can create a dispiriting environment for incarcerated individuals. Hanson-Mundell describes how a prerelease facility provides hope for these women, a chance to rejoin civilian life, start working, or see their families. Yet, many women have been denied this right. According to Out For Justice, 1 in 10 women at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (MCI-W) have qualified for prerelease, yet as many as 30 percent of these women have not been assigned work opportunities.

As of February 2022, up-to-date corporate coverage regarding the lack of women’s prerelease facilities in Maryland is scarce. In January 2020, the Washington Post covered efforts to convert the Brockbridge Correctional Facility, a former maximum security prison, into a “comprehensive prerelease, reentry, and workforce development facility.” Although women’s advocates maintained that the coed design was unlikely to meet everyone’s needs equally, emphasizing the importance of gender-specific programming and legislation. That same month, NPR published a similar report. However, because both were published prior to the pandemic, neither could foresee how unlivable America’s prisons would soon become. A key element in The Real News Network reporting recognizes organizers’ repeated efforts to encourage Maryland officials to follow through with the Gender-Responsive Prerelease Act, despite Governor Hogan’s attempt to veto the bill. A January 2021 Baltimore Sun report failed to acknowledge the work done by Hanson-Mundell, Senator Mary Washington, State Delegate Charlotte Crutchfield, and so many others to shepherd this bill into law.

Source: Eddie Conway and Charles Hopkins, “‘It Is Torture’: Women In Maryland’s Prisons Have Nowhere To Turn,” The Real News Network, February 14, 2022.

Student Researchers: Thomas Gruttadauria, Kate Horgan, and Lydia Jankowski (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Faculty Advisor: Allison Butler (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

The post Injustice for Incarcerated Women in Maryland after State Cuts Funds for Prerelease Facility appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

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