Warning of deteriorating conditions and “ignored and inhumane” issues like inadequate medical treatment, incarcerated Marylanders lamented a long list of problems earlier this year when they advocated — in a letter campaign aided by criminal justice advocates — for a new, independent office to field complaints and investigate state-run prisons.

Passed by state lawmakers with bipartisan support, that office inched closer to reality last week when Gov. Wes Moore named Yvonne Briley-Wilson to lead the new Office of Correctional Ombudsman.

Briley-Wilson will start as the state’s inaugural correctional ombudsman in October and was not yet available for an interview about how she envisions the role, according to the governor’s office.

But as Maryland’s correctional system continues to come under fire from the incarcerated, the public and its own employees, the office is expected to have no shortage of work. Crime still ranks as a top concern for the public, though the ombudsman will be solely focused on what’s happening behind prison walls — from understaffed and undertrained corrections departments, to a lack of educational programming and health care that advocates and officials have documented in the state for years.

“It’s easy to kind of hide or paper over some of the problems that exist because of the nature of it being literally behind the walls and a place that is so out of mind from,” said Heather Warnken, executive director of the University of Baltimore Center for Criminal Justice Reform. “We have a really long way to go.”

What will the ombudsman do?

The ombudsman’s role will be to investigate and conduct independent reviews of both adult and juvenile correctional facilities operated by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

That includes health and mental health services provided to incarcerated individuals as well as the educational and vocational programs provided in them, which have long been areas of concern.

“We’re giving people extremely long sentences so we have a population that’s growing older and sicker and health care issues tend to be the No. 1 complaint,” said Olinda Moyd, one of the most vocal advocates for the new law through her work with the Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform.

Equipped with subpoena power, the office will have the ability to compel interviews with individuals, access records and perform unannounced site visits and inspections, according to the law passed this year.

Annual reports it produces will detail aspects of its investigations — and an initial report by the end of this year is slated to show how it will coordinate with the Commission on Correctional Standards. That commission, operating within DPSCS as opposed to the ombudsmen’s new independent setup, currently audits facilities and private home detention monitoring agencies. The ombudsman’s office, which reports to the governor, will complement some of those audits but not take on the compliance role for home detention monitoring.

Another already established office aimed at accountability in the system — the Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit within Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office — will be transferred to the ombudsmen. Brown said in testimony earlier this year the transfer is an important move to prevent conflicts between the independent investigations of the facilities and the attorney general’s role in defending them.

The backdrop

The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has faced public scrutiny, including in June when a union representing correctional officers demanded the firing of its top official, Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs, after the on-duty death of a parole and probation agent Davis Martinez. Earlier this year, a correctional officer was stabbed at a prison in Cumberland, and low staffing levels have been a constant concern.

Sweeping changes to the juvenile system, meanwhile, were a priority for state lawmakers earlier this year and were signed into law by Moore despite calls from some reform advocates for him to veto them. The legislation expanded the charges that a child between ages 10 and 12 can face while also creating or codifying programs for children accused of, or more likely to commit, certain crimes.

According to the latest report from the Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit, more juveniles are spending time in correctional facilities, sometimes without adequate heating or cooling.

In the second quarter of this year, both the population of incarcerated youth and the number of incidents in which staff physically restrained them rose in every DJS facility except for at the Lower Eastern Shore Children’s Center, according to the report released Friday. The Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, for example, is a maximum security detention center for boys where the average daily population has increased from 68 a year ago to 96 during the first quarter of this year.

The report outlines both “strengths” and “concerns” at the Baltimore facility.

Positives included preparing youth for a GED and the availability of new activities “after a long delay,” including a music room. Negatives were a malfunctioning heating and cooling system that left “uncomfortably hot living conditions for young people and a harsh working environment for staff” in June, and “inadequate” mental health services.

Improving conditions

Warnken and Moyd, the advocates who both supported the law, said separately they’re hopeful the ombudsman’s office will have a multifold effect — improving conditions for the incarcerated but also corrections officers and visitors. Moyd said after spending time with incarcerated lifers and asking them to provide testimony, she received 95 letters and submitted 63 from people who didn’t mind attaching their names.

“We saw over and over again the devastating impacts and harms of not having that avenue of relief,” Warnken said. “Those harms have taken many forms. Rights violations. Lack of access to medical care and mental health care. Lack of access to vocational programming, educational programming and other types of support services.”

Progress in those areas can also have a real impact on public safety, said Warnken, who’s testimony in support of the bill this year noted about 4,000 people are released from prisons back into Maryland communities each year. There’s a “direct effect” between prison conditions and recidivism, she said.

“These are people who are coming home to our communities,” Warnken said.