Earlier this month, the Maryland Office of the Public Defender raised concerns about conditions at the Baltimore County Detention Center for youths charged as adults — issues ranging from a lack of education to rodent infestations.
WYPR reporter Rachel Baye got a firsthand look at those conditions this week during a tour of the jail, and she spoke with Ashley Sterner to share what she saw.
Sterner: Rachel, let’s get straight down to it. Did your visit confirm the allegations that the Public Defender’s Office had made?
Baye: The short answer is my visit backed up some of what the public defender’s office described, but in other ways, what I saw differed substantially from their allegations.
For example, one of the major concerns raised by the public defenders is that the juveniles at the jail are confined to their cells 23 hours a day and are only released for about an hour a day to shower and make phone calls.
Read more and listen to the story at wypr.org.
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