Metropolitan Transition Center (Baltimore, Maryland)

 prison  Add category

The Metropolitan Transition Center is Maryland's oldest State prison and the oldest operating penal institution in the western world. It was first named the Maryland Penitentiary. Authorized in 1804, the Maryland Penitentiary opened in 1811 and was Maryland's only prison until 1879.

A maximum-security section to confine prisoners under sentence of death and an execution chamber were included in a building built on the grounds in 1956. Since 1923, executions took place at the Penitentiary. Executions ceased in Maryland from June 1961 to May 1994. By statute, in 1994, the method of execution was changed from lethal gas to lethal injection. In 2013, Maryland abolished the death penalty.

In February 1998, the Penitentiary reorganized as the Metropolitan Transition Center. The Center incarcerates short-term offenders where previously it had held those long-term prisoners requiring maximum security. Effective July 1, 2001, the Baltimore City Correctional Center, Baltimore Pre-Release Unit, and the Central Home Detention Unit transferred from the Maryland Correctional Pre-Release System to the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Transition Center. In 2008, the Central Home Detention Unit moved to Community Surveillance and Enforcement in the Division of Parole and Probation.

954 Forrest Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21202

Phone: (410) 837-2135
Fax: (410) 385-1049

www.dpscs.state.md.us/locations/mtc.shtml