The violence spike in Maryland's state prisons did not emerge from nowhere. It grew in the gap left by a decade of declining correctional officer staffing — a gap so large that by 2023 the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was documenting a statewide shortage exceeding 3,400 officers, mandatory overtime was consuming staff capacity, and union representatives were publicly warning that the conditions put both officers and inmates at risk of serious harm.
The Numbers: A 27% Reduction Over Six Years
According to data analyzed by the Baltimore Banner and the Daily Record, the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) cut the number of allocated correctional officer positions across all of its facilities by approximately 27 percent between July 2019 and July 2025. Across the 13 state prisons specifically, the cut was approximately 18 percent.
These are not vacancy numbers — they represent the total authorized positions, not just the ones that happen to be unfilled. When the authorized position count falls, the maximum staffing level falls with it. Even if every authorized position were filled, the facility would operate with 18–27 percent fewer officers than it had six years earlier.
Layered on top of the position cuts is actual vacancy — the gap between authorized positions and the people currently in them. At various points in 2024 and 2025, DPSCS reported nearly 500 vacant correctional officer positions. AFSCME's 2023 analysis put the effective shortage — including positions cut from the authorized total — at more than 3,400 statewide.
What Understaffing Does Inside a Prison
The practical effects of chronic understaffing on daily operations inside a prison are significant:
- Fewer rounds and welfare checks: When officers are stretched across more posts than staffing allows, the frequency and thoroughness of rounds — physical walk-throughs of housing units — decreases. Intervals between checks grow longer, creating windows in which violence can begin and escalate without intervention.
- Reduced programming coverage: Programming and education sessions require officer escorts and supervision. When officers are unavailable, programming gets canceled. Canceled programming means more idle time in housing units — a known risk factor for inter-group tension.
- Mandatory overtime exhaustion: Officers required to work double shifts and extended hours are fatigued. Fatigued officers miss warning signs, respond more slowly, and are less capable of de-escalating conflicts. DPSCS was paying significant mandatory overtime costs during the same period that homicides were climbing.
- Gang and contraband dynamics: In housing units without consistent officer presence, the vacuum of authority is often filled by incarcerated people with power — sometimes gang-affiliated individuals who enforce their own order, which may or may not align with safety for other inmates.
Western Correctional Institution: A Case Study
Western Correctional Institution (WCI), a maximum-security men's prison in Cumberland, Allegany County, has been specifically cited by the correctional officers' union as a facility where the staffing plan creates unacceptable safety risks. WCI is one of three facilities that account for roughly 70 percent of Maryland prison homicides since 2015, and it is one of the most geographically isolated facilities in the state — deep in the western mountains, far from the Baltimore and DC labor markets that supply most state workers.
Geographic isolation makes WCI's staffing challenges especially acute. Recruiting officers willing to live and work in Allegany County — a rural county far from major population centers — is inherently harder than staffing a facility near Baltimore or Jessup. When authorized positions are cut and vacancies are high, WCI ends up with the least staffing flexibility among DPSCS facilities.
The 2025 Turnaround: Signs of Improvement
DPSCS reported significant progress in 2025, announcing that it hired more correctional officers than in any other year in the past decade and that the system-wide vacancy rate fell to 8.42 percent — the lowest in seven years. The department credited streamlined hiring processes, enhanced recruitment, and retention initiatives.
The tension is that homicides also reached a decade high in 2025 — 13 that year, the worst on record. The hiring gains and the violence trajectory have not yet moved together. This is partly a lag problem: new officers hired in 2025 are in training and building experience through 2025 and 2026, and the structural damage from years of position cuts cannot be undone in a single year's hiring cycle.
What Families Can Do
Families of people incarcerated in Maryland state prisons can engage with DPSCS through:
- DPSCS public information: dpscs.maryland.gov provides facility contact information, inmate search, and oversight contacts.
- ACLU of Maryland: aclu-md.org handles prison conditions complaints and constitutional concerns.
- Office of the Public Defender — Parole Division: Represents incarcerated people in parole and post-conviction matters and can address facility safety concerns.
DPSCS headquarters: 300 East Joppa Road, Suite 1000, Towson, MD 21286. Phone: (410) 339-5000. Website: dpscs.maryland.gov.