Maryland and Gang Tracking
Two years ago, Maryland Corrections Secretary Gary D. Maynard gave prison and local police officials a simple task: draw up lists of the most violent gang members being held in state custody. With the House of Correction set to be shuttered, the worst of the worst would be transported to out-of-state facilities.
The agencies submitted a total of 220 names, but to Maynard’s surprise, only eight appeared on more than one list. The prisons didn’t know who the police thought were most dangerous, and the police departments weren’t sharing the information with each other, either. “I told them that we have a gang problem in our prison, and I think it reaches into the street. It was a problem we shared,” Maynard said. During the next few months, dozens of top state law enforcement leaders began meeting to discuss broader ways to share intelligence. Now they’re pushing for legislation in the General Assembly to define gangs, correctional training facilities have adopted uniform curricula to help track gangs, and beginning this month the prison system began using a formal system to notify a jurisdiction when an inmate with known gang connections is heading to their area. Police will also share more information with the prison system, helping corrections officials get a leg up by receiving information that would take far longer to develop through observation. Keeping members of rival gangs apart can prevent violence …
Before the collaborative effort, prison officials had scant information about who was heading into their facilities. “When people came into prison, we got a rap sheet that showed their conviction, but it didn’t really speak to violence, and says nothing about gang involvement,” Maynard said. “We had to learn by trial and error who the bad actors were” …
Public safety officials have said the state’s prisons house more than 2,200 “validated” gang members – inmates whose identity as gang members has been firmly established. That’s nearly 10 percent of the 23,000 inmates in Maryland. Kristen Mahoney, executive director of the Governor’s Office on Crime Control and Prevention, said gangs are “created in prison and leave prison and work out in the streets.”
The full article in the Baltimore Sun has more detailed information.