Maryland Prisons | DOC | Prison Inmate Search

Clicking on any of the Maryland facilities below will direct you to an information page with Inmate Search, Visitation, Mail, Phone, Email, Most Wanted and FAQ for families and friends.

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Maryland Department of Correction - Prisons & Inmate Search

Maryland State Prisons and Juvenile Facilities

Maryland’s prison history begins in Baltimore, where the Maryland Penitentiary opened in 1811. The old penitentiary site is now the Metropolitan Transition Center, and it held the state’s execution chamber. Today, adult prisons are run by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS), created in 1970, through its Division of Correction.

One thing sets Maryland apart: the state, not the city, runs pretrial detention in Baltimore. DPSCS’s Division of Pretrial Detention and Services operates the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, the Chesapeake Detention Facility and the Youth Detention Center, where teens charged as adults are held. In every other county, people awaiting trial stay in the local county jail.

How many people are in Maryland prisons?

The Division of Correction’s annual report for fiscal year 2025 counted 15,217 incarcerated people. Of those, 603 were women, all held at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup, the only state prison just for women. Most of the state’s prisons are clustered in two areas: around Jessup, between Baltimore and Washington, and in the western counties near Hagerstown and Cumberland.

Maximum security: Jessup Correctional Institution (Jessup), North Branch Correctional Institution and Western Correctional Institution (both near Cumberland), and Patuxent Institution (Jessup), which focuses on mental health and treatment
Medium security: Eastern Correctional Institution (Westover), Maryland Correctional Institution–Hagerstown, Maryland Correctional Training Center (Hagerstown), Roxbury Correctional Institution (Hagerstown) and the Metropolitan Transition Center (Baltimore)
Women: Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (Jessup), which houses women at every security level
Minimum security and pre-release: Baltimore City Correctional Center, Central Maryland Correctional Facility (Sykesville) and Dorsey Run Correctional Facility (Jessup)

Arrival: the reception center

Men sentenced to state prison are processed at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center (MRDCC) in Baltimore. Staff there complete health screenings and testing and decide each man’s security level before sending him to a longer-term prison. Women are received at the women’s prison in Jessup. Check the person’s location and read the department’s visitation rules before making a trip.

Finding someone in a Maryland prison

DPSCS offers an Incarcerated Individual Locator on its website. Search by name to find which facility is holding the person, then note their DOC identification number, which belongs on letters and money transfers.

A Jessup prison closes

In September 2025, Gov. Wes Moore announced that the Maryland Correctional Institution–Jessup, a medium-security prison opened in 1981, would close by June 30, 2026. It held 709 men. The state said it would need about $200 million in repairs to its foundation, plumbing, electrical systems and roof. Closing it was projected to save about $21 million a year and to ease mandatory overtime by shifting its 308 staff positions to nearby prisons. Men were moved in phases to Hagerstown, Roxbury, North Branch and other Jessup facilities.

No death penalty since 2013

Gov. Martin O’Malley signed a repeal of the death penalty on May 2, 2013, making Maryland the 18th state to end it. The law did not apply to the people already sentenced, so at the end of 2014 O’Malley announced he would commute the four remaining death sentences to life without parole. Maryland carried out five executions after the death penalty returned nationally, beginning with John Thanos in 1994, the state’s first lethal injection. The last was Wesley Baker in December 2005. Historians count at least 310 executions in Maryland between 1638 and 1961, most by hanging; the state switched to the gas chamber in 1955.

Maryland juvenile facilities

The Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) first used that name in 1966. It was called the Department of Juvenile Justice from 1995 to 2003 before returning to its current name. Unlike most states, Maryland runs juvenile detention itself, so DJS operates both the centers that hold youth awaiting court and the programs for youth a judge commits to the state.

State detention centers include the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School in Baltimore County, Cheltenham Youth Detention Center in Prince George’s County, the Lower Eastern Shore Children’s Center in Salisbury and the Western Maryland Children’s Center in Hagerstown. For committed youth, the Victor Cullen Center in Sabillasville is a 27-bed secure treatment program for boys ages 15 to 21, with stays of six to nine months. As youth numbers fell, DJS closed several sites, including the Noyes Children’s Center in Rockville and the Garrett Children’s Center, and the state counts them as “temporarily closed.”

Cheltenham’s past has drawn new attention. The campus began in 1873 as a reformatory for Black boys, and a 2026 Capital News Service investigation documented well over a hundred deaths there, many from tuberculosis, with most boys buried in unmarked graves nearby. Lawmakers are pressing for a full investigation. Juvenile records are confidential, so parents and guardians should contact DJS directly.

To search for an inmate or juvenile, or to learn how to visit, call, write or send money to someone in the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services or Department of Juvenile Services, choose a facility from the list below.