Maryland’s corrections commissioner has retired amid turmoil over the state’s troubled prisons and the killings of two correctional officers by inmates this year, reports the Baltimore Sun. Frank C. Sizer Jr., 62, gave two weeks notice to Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Mary Ann Saar. Sizer cleared out his office yesterday. The abrupt departure suggested he did not retire voluntarily.
Sizer was regarded as a political liability for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Republican legislators from Western Maryland, where several state prisons are located, called for Sizer’s ouster after a correctional officer was killed in January while guarding an inmate at a hospital in Hagerstown. The clamor for Sizer’s removal grew after a second correctional officer was stabbed to death in July. Sizer headed the prison system for three years and previously served as warden of one prison and deputy commissioner of the Division of Correction. He will be replaced on an acting basis by John Rowley, an assistant corrections commissioner.
Link: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.sizer24aug24,0,831268.story?coll=bal-home-headlines