Hagerstown, Maryland — Maryland's prison agency said Wednesday it
has suspended one facility's program allowing inmates to prepare rescued pets
for adoption after a prison worker and an inmate were bitten by dogs in
separate incidents in recent months.
The civilian worker required stitches for a bite in the
face, and the inmate suffered a puncture wound to his hand, a spokesman said.
The suspension of the Prison Pets program at the
medium-security Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown does not
affect animal-centered programs at nine other Department of Public Safety and
Correctional Services institutions, including two programs similar to Prison
Pets, spokesman Robert Thomas said. Most of the other programs involve inmates
training service dogs.
Thomas said the Prison Pets program was launched at the
180-bed prison with good intentions but without higher approval of any
guidelines or agreements with the animal shelters that supplied the dogs and
cats, which otherwise would have been euthanized.
"We think the program has merit. It needs to be
implemented in the correct way," Thomas said. He said agency officials
hope to make a decision about the program's future by the end of January.
The Herald-Mail first reported the suspension Tuesday. In
an earlier story in July, Warden Phil Morgan told the newspaper that the
program, then a year old, had had "a total calming effect" on the
prison's inmate population.
Thomas told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the
warden or his representative should have made sure the program was properly
approved. He said the warden sent authorization paperwork to an assistant
Division of Correction commissioner last fall, but the assistant commissioner
retired in November, apparently without taking action on the proposal.
The program adopted out 100 dogs and 30 cats, Thomas said.
He said he expects the 26 animals remaining in the program to be adopted by
Jan. 8.
