A prisoner was killed inside the Jessup Correctional Institution on Monday, representing the third prison homicide this month, state officials said.

The spate of deaths comes after Maryland experienced 13 killings in state-run correctional facilities in 2025, the highest tally in more than a decade.

Maryland State Police identified the victim as Joseph Harrell, 33. He was pronounced dead at the prison by emergency medical personnel.

According to state police, Harrell was killed after he was “involved in an altercation with another inmate in front of the library.”

Corrections officials said Harrell was serving a five-year sentence for a felony firearm possession charge, with two additional years for offenses committed while in prison. Harrell had been incarcerated since June 2022.

State police officials said they are withholding the name of a suspect, also a prisoner, during their ongoing investigation.

This is the second homicide at the Jessup Correctional Institution this month. Javon Foster, 38, was killed inside his cell on Jan. 18. Larry Horton, 51, was killed earlier in the month at North Branch Correctional Institution in Allegany County, a “supermax” facility that had the highest number of reported homicides last year.

Thirteen incarcerated people were killed in Maryland prisons last year, the highest total since 2012 and possibly earlier, according to a Baltimore Banner analysis of mortality records.

The homicide trend has worsened even as the state’s prison population has dwindled since the COVID-19 pandemic.

State correctional officials have said they are attempting to curb the surge of violence with intelligence gathering and other preventative measures. But the union representing correctional officers has said there are simply not enough staff members to run the facilities safely.