Air conditioning broken for six days in housing unit of Baltimore jail that was recently without running water
Air conditioning in a housing unit of a Baltimore jail was broken for six days until being restored Wednesday afternoon.
Morgan Wright, spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said air at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center was fixed around 3:30 p.m. following an HVAC malfunction.
The outage started Friday after a blower motor on a single housing unit tier malfunctioned, according to a statement from the department, and the facility staff moved inmates out of the impacted areas, though it is not clear how long they were in cells without air conditioning. The department said it ensures that each housing unit is equipped with fans and air-handling units.
Conditions at the facility in May prompted public defenders to file 11 petitions for the release of incarcerated people awaiting trial, citing deplorable conditions that they said violated detainees’ rights to due process free from cruel and unusual punishment.
The same facility did not have running water for days on two separate occasions this spring. On May 12 and 13, the facility’s main sanitation pipe was clogged with paper waste and sewage, and the water supply was disrupted again May 16.
The department said at the time that it brought in portable toilets and handwashing stations, along with a health inspector. The facility, which opened in 1981, is on East Madison Street near the Jones Falls Expressway in the Penn-Fallsway neighborhood. In May an Office of Public Defender official said more than 420 people were incarcerated there awaiting their trials.
