MARYLAND (7News) — As Maryland heads into 2026, correctional officers are raising urgent concerns about what they describe as increasingly dangerous and deteriorating conditions inside the state’s prisons.
Tony Sines, a correctional officer at Western Correctional Institution and a union leader, says, “It’s unsafe. It’s unpredictable Recreation doesn’t happen regularly; things get canceled, the tension is higher, frustrations are higher.”
Maryland recorded 13 prison homicides in 2025, up from nine in 2024 and more than double the historical average — even as the overall prison population continues to decline. Sines attributes the spike in violence to chronic understaffing…