Healthcare Still Lacking at Baltimore Jail Decades After Settlement
by Michael Dean Thompson
Detainees in the Baltimore jail filed a lawsuit in 1976 over conditions of their confinement and medical care, and the case runs on. Five years later, the lawsuit was brought into a class action that resulted in a decree. The case continued to be revised, settled and revived over the succeeding decades until a 2016 settlement established the current decree. U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander said in her opinion then, “The litigation is now in its fifth decade. Hopefully, the case is drawing to an end.” See: Duvall v. O’Malley, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83478.
But it was not and a third extension was granted in June 2026, dragging the litigation into its sixth decade. The Baltimore jail now has until December 31, 2027 to reach full compliance.
The jail remains fully noncompliant in at least six areas and partially noncompliant in many others. Complicating their compliance efforts is the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services’ (DPSCS) use of the private healthcare company Centurion Health, which has been unable to meet the necessary staffing levels. Accordingly, the provider has not been responding in a timely manner, and sometimes not at all.
Centurion Health won the five-year contract for both medical and mental health services with DPSCS in 2024 with $1.2 billion for Maryland prisons and $490 million for detention facilities like Baltimore’s Central Booking jail. Until then, it had been providing only mental health services while Corizon Health provided medical care. Not long after winning its contract, however, Centurion began having problems.
A February 2026 report from the Department of Legislative Services Office of Policy Analysis cited Centurion with $11.8 million in damages, mostly due to staffing levels from February to June 2025. A $109,150 fine was cited due to complaints without timely responses from February to August that same year.
“It’s frustrating that you know it was supposed to be in compliance fully six years ago, and again here we are,” Corene Kendrick, Deputy Director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project, told Maryland Matters. “It’s dragged on way too long.”
While there has been some progress, with areas like sanitation, vermin infestations, and mental health requirements now fully compliant, there is reason to worry the noncompliance may drag on longer. In 2023, Corizon Health declared bankruptcy due to a barrage of litigation from inmates across the country. It restructured and changed its name to YesCare, only to declare bankruptcy again and close its doors for good. It is a problem endemic in the private prison healthcare industry.
“All of the major healthcare contractors, you know—WellPath, YesCare, Centurion, Armor, NaphCare—they’re all deluged with lawsuits,” Wanda Bertram, Communications Strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative told Maryland Matters. “It doesn’t work for a county or a state prison system to just hop from one provider to the next and say that’s going to fix the problem.”
Meanwhile, Central Booking is being challenged in more litigation. A federal judge found that the problem of overbooking the jail is continuing and that a 2022 lawsuit over the issue is eligible for class action litigation.
Additional Source: Maryland Matters
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