The state’s probation agents have not conducted home visits, including with registered sex offenders, since May, after the corrections department secretary suspended the check-ins for safety reasons.

Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs ordered the Division of Parole and Probations agents to stop the visits after Agent Davis Martinez was killed during a home visit with a client.

State lawmakers pressed Scruggs Thursday on the pause during a second joint hearing of criminal justice and budget committees overseeing the agency’s handling of Martinez’s death. They also asked how it could have been prevented and what steps the agency has taken to ensure worker safety. Some appeared concerned about the lack of in-person contact with probationers convicted of violent acts.

“So for the past six months, we have offenders in the community without any oversight?” asked Sen. William Folden, a Republican from Frederick County and a career law enforcement officer.

Scruggs said that wasn’t entirely true. Some time after she ordered the suspension, a commissioned police officer within the agency resumed mandatory visits with registered sex offenders, with Scruggs’ knowledge. But Scruggs was not immediately able to tell lawmakers when those visits restarted or how many other commissioned law enforcement officers may have helped.

“I can tell you there’s 40 sex offenders in Frederick County, minimum, that haven’t been checked up on since May 31,” Folden said. “That’s inexcusable.”

Del. Ben Barnes, chair of the Appropriations Committee and a Democrat from Prince George’s County, called Scruggs’ responses to questions “woefully inadequate.”

Another agency official added that agents have been conducting check-ins by phone and video calls. Folden noted the value of an agent showing up in person could possibly reveal illicit behaviors or possessions that can’t be seen remotely.

Scruggs said that since the joint committee assembled in October, her agency has made progress. She has met with law enforcement officials who have agreed to accompany agents on home visits and had hundreds of agents fitted for bullet- and puncture-proof vests. She has also communicated with the agents’ union on policy changes, she said.

Rayneika Robinson, president of the parole and probation agents’ union, confirmed that “not one agent has gone out to do one home visit” since Scruggs’ suspension.

“We are overwhelmed and struggling to proactively engage with our clients,” she said, adding the actions of the agency so far have been encouraging, but fall short of what is really needed.

Training has failed to keep pace with resources, she said. Certain field offices lack armed guards, and some hired security guards have failed to intervene, such as when a registered sex offender recently followed an agent to their car, she told lawmakers.

Agents want technology so supervisors can track their whereabouts while they are visiting violent offenders.

“We want to be sure that someone is checking on us,” she said.

May 31, the last day the state agents have conducted home visits, was the day local authorities found Martinez dead in a registered sex offender’s Chevy Chase apartment. Martinez had not reported to work after a home visit with Emanuel Edward Sewell.

Sewell has been charged in connection to Davis’ death. Police radio chatter obtained by The Baltimore Banner revealed Martinez had reported Sewell as uncooperative.

The backlash surrounding Davis’ death forced Scruggs to make immediate leadership changes in parole and probation. Union officials called for her resignation and accused her of ignoring longstanding health and safety complaints.

After seven months of mourning their colleague, she Robinson said, “Our members are tired and angry.”

She told lawmakers Thursday that she and her colleagues still don’t have a full picture of what happened to Martinez. An after-action report provided by the agency, she said, “focused on the actions of Agent Martinez, but we want all of the actions,” including what the agency could have done differently.

“The only way we can move forward,” Robinson said, “is by really knowing what happened.”