Senator blasts parole department over lack of home visits for violent offenders

Senator William Folden, R-Frederick County, questions Secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services Vincent Schiraldi at a Judicial Proceedings Committee briefing on the Department of Juvenile Services Evaluation by the Department of Legislative Services Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability. Kim Hairston/Staff

State Sen. William Folden, a Republican from Frederick County and a retired deputy sheriff, is raising concerns about the lack of monitoring for violent offenders on parole in Maryland.

As the legislative session in Annapolis nears the end of its second week, Folden is sounding the alarm over what he describes as an urgent public safety issue.

Folden said that for the past eight months, there have been no home visits by parole agents to violent offenders, including sexual predators, who are on parole or probation.

“Our greatest concern is that they’re doing whatever they want without any proper oversight and monitoring,” Folden said. “And they’re released … the terms of their release aren’t even being met because the Department of Parole and Probation is not doing their part to do in-home visits.”

The pause on in-home visits began in May following the murder of parole agent Davis Martinez, who was found dead in the home of one of his supervisees, Emanuel Sewell, the accused killer. Carolyn Scruggs, Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which oversees the Division of Parole and Probation, initially deemed the pause necessary for agent safety.

However, with no indication of when the pause will be lifted, Folden believes Scruggs may be putting the public at risk.

“Look, they have an armed apprehension unit that they could use and realign them to go and do these checks to make sure that our communities are safe and protected,” Folden said. “And her mismanagement, her poor leadership made the decision that ‘oh, we’re not just going to do any in-home visits. And that has absolutely left our communities in the state vulnerable.”

While agents are conducting virtual visits, Folden argues that this is insufficient for proper monitoring.

“(We’ve got to know that offenders) don’t have tools or weapons at their disposal or drugs that they shouldn’t be having. And we don’t know because we’re not doing the visits. We might be doing them like this (via ZOOM), but you can’t tell anything about me any more than I can tell about you from your shoulders up,” he said.

FOX45 News reached out to Scruggs’ office for comment, but received no reply as of Thursday night.

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