CUMBERLAND — Legislation passed during the 2024 session of the Maryland General Assembly will provide local detention centers with a greater voice when it comes to the guidelines governing Maryland’s corrections system, according to state Sen. Mike McKay.
The legislation, Senate Bill 402, alters the membership of the Maryland Correctional Training Commission, which is directly involved in developing procedures and regulations, McKay said. The law requires commission members, who are appointed by the governor, to represent certain geographic regions, including local detention centers.
“What we found out was that the local detention centers did not have a voice on the training commission board; they had the correction facilities but not the detention centers,” said McKay.
Under the new law, the commission will represent five different geographic regions: Capital, Central, Eastern Shore, Southern and Western. The western region includes Garrett, Allegany and Washington counties.
McKay said the inclusion of a wider swath of members should help in funding certain programs like opioid care in detentions centers, which are a huge financial burden to the centers.
“Unfortunately, what happens in our prisons and correction facilities is similar but not exactly what happens in our detention centers,” said McKay. “They do operate a little different. So what this did was make sure that the detention centers were represented on the CTC.”
McKay said detainees at the Allegany County Detention Center are largely addicted to drugs.
“Our detention center in Allegany County has over 82% that are actually addicted to opioids. The situation is different than what’s going to a correctional facility,” he said.
A law passed in 2016, according to McKay, required local detention centers to offer drug treatment. If a detainee is prescribed medications to treat drug addiction, or is in need of treatment, the centers must maintain the current prescriptions and provide access to those who need treatment.
“What happened is, Allegany County is now on the hook for around $800,000 a year to administer a state program that was not funded,” said McKay. “The state passes a mandate and doesn’t fund it.”
Prior to 2016, individuals with alcohol or drug addictions were forced to detox while detained.
McKay said the county has to buy and administer drugs like Suboxone as well as any other medications to treat the addiction. Suboxone is the brand name for buprenorphine with naloxone, an opioid-receptor blocker that reduces the effect of narcotics.
“You have to get them on an anti-opioid medication like Suboxone and some mental health and other classes and hopefully they can help reverse their dependency,” said McKay. “The problem is the detention center has to buy it and administer it.”
McKay said that detention center representation on the CTC could help draw attention to the problem and hopefully receive funding for the program.
“Anytime we can get local voices involved in the decisions in Annapolis it’s a good thing,” said McKay.