The Baltimore jail that was run by a gang

One inmate at Baltimore’s city jail fathered five children with four corrections officers

BALTIMORE – The Baltimore City Detention Center is old. It was in business before Abraham Lincoln was president. Ghosts are everywhere – in the concertina wire lacing the sky, the ancient stone façade, the trash swirling on the sidewalk, and the white door with a small barred window set hard on the street. It was once said that inmates who walked up the steps and through that jail door exited on a gurney.

The jail was also, until recently, run by a gang.

“Everything is drugs. The gangs were just, basically, the face of the drug dealers," said Ralph Johnson, who was a corrections officer at BCDC for 18 years and a supervisor for most of that time. "…Nobody cared. You're going to an environment where people are trying to survive. People are trying to make money. People are just trying to stay out the way.”

More