The Public Safety Stakeholder

Stephen M. Shiloh, CEO of MD Correctional Enterprises, addresses participants of the National Correctional Industries Association Conference held this month in Baltimore

This Month's Featured Stories:

Being Prepared for Crisis Situations Through Hostage Negotiation Training

National Conference Hosted by DPSCS Correctional Industry

Agency Partnership Resurrects Cattle Chute

keeping communities safe

Hostage Negotiation Training Expands Departmental Response Capabilities

Eight Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) correctional officers graduated March 11 from a Hostage Negotiator Basic Course. Although the Department hopes never to have to use these officers in a hostage negotiation role, being prepared to respond to all types of possible crisis situations within our facilities is vital to our operations and ultimately maintaining public safety.

The two-week course includes 55 hours of classroom instruction and four days of scenario training including two days at the now vacant Maryland House of Correction. Those going through training must pass a comprehensive test before graduating.

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believing in human capital

MD Correctional Enterprises Represents State's Commitment to Workforce Development as Host of National Conference

Hosting a national conference is a lot of work. Planning starts more than a year in advance and many man hours go into the details of making it all come together. But even more work goes into making a national conference a success.

Maryland Correctional Enterprises assisted the National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA) in hosting the 2011 Enterprises Conference in Baltimore March 24-28. International correctional industries came all the way from Canada and Australia, along with 35 state enterprises, 15 local jails/detention centers and the federal system. With more than 400 participants it was one of the largest conferences NCIA has seen in the past few years - and one of the most well received.

"Conference partipants repeatedly commented that this was the best NCIA conference in many years," said NCIA Executive Director Gina Honeycutt. "NCIA owes a great deal of the credit to its host, Maryland Correctional Enterprises, who did an outstanding job offering staff support and local planning in all facets of the conference. Steve Shiloh and his team played an integral role in the success of this conference and should be congratulated for assisting NCIA in bringing critical professional development to the field of correctional industries."

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public safety works

Cattle Chute Resurrected for Department of Agriculture

A cattle chute may not sound like the most exciting thing to many of us, but when your citizens depend upon the health and safety of animals that provide the food we eat, and you need a chute to examine and treat those animals, it takes on a huge importance---especially when it's the only one you have in the entire state.

That's why when the Maryland Division of Correction's Hagerstown regional maintenance chief Rick Winebrenner and his staff and inmates volunteered to repair an aging and one-of-a-kind cattle chute for the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA), it was cause for excitement.

The resulting partnership between two huge, critical State agencies resulted in some amazing reconstruction that has yielded a fully restored and functional piece of vital veterinary machinery.

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Hostage Negotiation Training Expands Departmental Response Capabilities continued

The training is based on the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Training and the Nebraska Model for Hostage Negotiation. The graduating officers came from across the state, including the western region and Maryland Correctional Pre-Release System.

Corrections Commissioner J. Michael Stouffer addresses recent graduates of the DPSCS Hostage Negotiation Training

This class was the third Hostage Negotiator Training (HNT) held by DPSCS. In April 2010, 29 officers graduated from the first class. Another 19 graduated from the second round of training in October 2010. Most of these graduates have been accepted to one of the five, fifteen-person teams throughout the state. The Cumberland and Hagerstown teams are now fully staffed.

Captain Theodore McKendrick, of Roxbury Correctional Institution, is the new Division of Correction Hostage Negotiation Team Director.

Another round of HNT will be held at Poplar Hill Pre-Release Unit in late April; HNT leadership expects that the Eastern Team be fully staffed following that graduation, expanding the response capabilities of DPSCS across the state.

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MD Correctional Enterprises Represents State's Commitment to Workforce Development as Host of National Conference continued

Maryland Correctional Enterprises (MCE) proudly represented Maryland's commitment to workforce development behind the fence. Giving offenders meaningful job opportunities means we are returning them to society with more skills and knowledge

Participants from the NCIA Conf. tour MCE plants at the Maryland Correctional Instituion for Women.

than when they entered our facilities. Improving their chances of becoming productive citizens and leading a crime free life.

The conference, held at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore's inner harbor, included an exhibit hall with vendors who supply materials to correctional industries and workshops that dealt with everything from operational best practices for running a business within a prison, to reentry strategies to maximize offender employability upon release. MCE staff presented two of the conference's workshops on their innovative Continuing Allocation of Reenry Services (CARES) program and new work opportunities that included their delve into green products such as growing bay grasses for sustainability efforts.

MCE also hosted a tour of their plants at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup, giving participants a chance to learn more about why MCE has been one of the top 10 industries in the nation in terms of sales and offender employment. In FY10 MCE provided 2.89 hours of training to a record monthly average of 2,038 inmates.

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Cattle Chute Resurrected for Department of Agriculture continued

Maintenance staff and inmates repaired broken parts on the rusted chute. The Maryland Correctional Training Center's (MCTC) auto garage, a vocational education shop, then re-painted the entire chute. Between staff and inmate time, about 80 hours went into the project, Winebrenner said.

Before

"The cattle chute was fun to work on," he said. "It got the guys involved in something different."

Winebrenner's maintenance shop employees about 30 inmates year-round, with the number increasing to about 45 during the summer months when they mow around the facilities. The inmates are housed at a minimum-security unit at MCTC.

"They get an opportunity to learn a trade, and some already have had a trade so they benefit us with their experience. They're at the end of their sentence so they're eager to learn," Winebrenner said about the inmate labor.

Inmates accompany maintenance staff to assist with jobs around the complex.

After

"Instead of a tradesman, we now have a tradesman and two to three inmates, so more bodies on the job," Winebrenner said.

And thanks to their efforts, the Maryland Department of Agriculture now has a working cattle chute that can help State animal health experts vaccinate and treat animals.

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