Maryland

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) runs the state’s prison system — about 15 state prisons and pre-release units, operated by its Division of Correction and the Patuxent Institution. They are all state-operated; Maryland has no private prisons. DPSCS’s materials use the phrase incarcerated individual; this site uses neutral terms.

Where a person is held turns first on the sentence. A person sentenced to state prison is held in a DPSCS facility; people awaiting trial are held in pretrial detention — in Baltimore through a separate DPSCS pretrial division, and elsewhere in county detention centers run by the counties. The pretrial and county facilities set their own rules.

Newly committed people are processed at a reception and classification center first. Women are received at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (MCI-W) in Jessup. Men’s intake was historically handled at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center (MRDCC) in Baltimore, but that facility was depopulated in late 2025 and men’s intake is in transition — confirm the current intake location with DPSCS or on the locator. Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013, so there is no death row and no execution chamber.

One facility is closing: Maryland Correctional Institution–Jessup (MCI-J) is scheduled to close on June 30, 2026, with its population transferred to other prisons. To find where someone is held, use the DPSCS Inmate Locator by name. Incoming personal mail goes directly to the facility (Maryland does not use an off-site mail vendor); books must be new paperbacks from an approved vendor, and video visits are free through Microsoft Teams (see the guides below). Use the guides for the statewide rules at Maryland prisons, or go straight to a specific facility.