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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Maryland prison pet program suspended for lack of guidelines

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) -- Maryland's prison agency says it's no longer allowing inmates to raise rescued pets for adoption after one of the dogs bit two inmates and a correctional officer.

Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services spokesman Robert Thomas told The Herald-Mail Tuesday that the program at the medium-security Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown has been curtailed.

The 18-month-old program allowed inmates to care for cats and dogs from area animal shelters. Proponents say it saved scores of animals from euthanasia.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That really is a shame. It's a win-win program, and I hope they re-instate it.

Anonymous said...

8:05 PM Ditto

Anonymous said...

The bureaucrat saying this proves animals don't belong in these facilities is a jerk. Develop guidelines and enforce them. NO information here about what happened, the severity, the type of dog, the situation that allowed the bites/ attack. Was the dog trained by the inmate to bite? Was it abused? Find out what is going on and fix it. I join the others above who called this a win-win.

Anonymous said...

Count me in on the win-win opinion.

"But Thomas says the program was growing without guidelines. He says the recent dog attack shows that correctional institutions should not be taking in dogs and cats."

Baloney, Mr. Thomas. What it shows is that the program needs tweaking by people who know what they're doing, instead of throwing the cats and dogs out with the bathwater as you suggest.

Anonymous said...

I hope they rethink it for the main reason it saved pets lives and gave them homes. One pet out of how many in the program caused them to drop it?