Thirteen incarcerated people have been killed by other prisoners this year, state officials said, marking the highest total in recent history.

Prisoner homicides reached their highest level since at least 2012, according to state corrections department records reviewed by The Banner. There have been five homicides — a typical total for an entire year — across November and December.

The 13 homicides represent a 44% increase over last year’s total of nine. Before last year, it was rare for more than a few prisoners to be killed in a single year, mortality records show.

The growing number of homicides comes as the Maryland prison population has shrunk considerably since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2016, an average of 22,600 people were incarcerated in state prisons on a given day. That figure has fallen to 16,300 this year, according to the data dashboard of the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Five of this year’s killings occurred at the state’s most secure prison, the “hyper-max” North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland. Three others happened inside Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover, a medium-security prison.

Jessup Correctional Institution, a maximum-security facility, had two homicides this year. Roxbury Correctional Institution, the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup, and the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown each had one.

The spike in homicides comes amid other security issues inside the state’s resource-strained prison system. The rate of prisoner assaults on staff and other incarcerated people jumped more than 50% year-over-year in the most recent fiscal year. Correctional officers also confiscated handcrafted weapons inside prisons during the most recent fiscal year at a rate triple the previous year’s.

In a statement provided Monday afternoon, Keith Martucci, a corrections department spokesperson, said the “health and safety of DPSCS staff and incarcerated individuals is paramount.”

“Addressing violence within our facilities requires a careful and deliberate approach that focuses on assessment, prevention, and more proactive measures,” Martucci said.

Martucci added that the department “uses an individual’s security level and past behavior, as well as intelligence gathering, to identify potential conflicts and safety concerns between individuals.” He said the department is adding body-worn cameras, facility upgrades, and other security initiatives in an effort to stem the violence.

AFSCME Maryland Council 3, the union representing Maryland correctional officers, blamed the worsening safety on low staffing levels.

Stuart Katzenberg, the union’s director of collective bargaining and growth, said prisons need to hire thousands of new officers in addition to filling open vacancies.

Katzenberg said correctional officers are frequently conscripted into overtime shifts, resulting in extra costs for the state and officer burnout that drives many to leave for other jobs.

“We think there is a direct correlation between assaults on incarcerated individuals and staff and the chronic understaffing,” Katzenberg said. “There are simply not enough staff in the facilities to make it safe.”

Katzenberg said the combination of growing violence and staffing shortages at the state’s most restrictive prisons has meant some dangerous people have been moved to less-controlled environments.

“They’re being pushed to lower security and putting people in danger,” he said.

Prisoners have told Olinda Moyd, a prison reform advocate who serves on the state’s correctional oversight board, that the escalating violence is a result of both poor staffing levels and an “infusion of drugs, including PCP and other substances that lead to more aggressive types of behavior.” She added some prisoners are getting high and creating dangerous situations for others.

“Some have severe mental health issues and they are not being controlled by the officers,” Moyd said in an interview last week.

Moyd said the prison system has become so dysfunctional that killed prisoners’ families learned of their deaths not from prison chaplains, but from other prisoners.

“There are 13 families now who are grieving the loss of someone who didn’t die at home, didn’t die out in the street, but died in the custody of the department of corrections,” Moyd said.

More than publicized

Some states require corrections departments to publicize deaths in their facilities, but Maryland has no such requirement. Details about prison homicides, however, are typically released by Maryland State Police, who also investigate the killings.

But this year, state police didn’t notify the public of two such homicides.

One of those victims was Yera Basnueva. He died in Jessup Correctional Institution in July. The medical examiner’s office attributed his death to injuries sustained during an assault from 2024, according to state police.

State police also did not put out a press release for a homicide at North Branch Correctional Institution. Jamal Colbert was found dead in his cell on Nov. 21 shortly before midnight, a state police spokesperson said. State police said an inmate has been identified as a suspect, but his identification is being withheld pending criminal charges.

Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the nonprofit advocacy group Prison Policy Initiative, said Maryland’s frequent lockdowns — when movement is restricted at a prison due to staffing shortages or security issues — are a symptom of larger dysfunction and may help explain the homicide surge.

Other states struggling with staffing shortages and lockdowns, such as Wisconsin, have seen a similar rise in deaths, she said.

“The fact that a prison is secure does not make it safe,” Bertram said. “There’s all sorts of reasons why you might see more homicides or drug overdose deaths during an extended lockdown period.”