Maryland. Dept. of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services was created in 1970 (Chapter 401, Acts of 1970), thereby consolidating several agencies concerned with public safety and correctional matters. The department is responsible for controlling and reducing crime, maintaining public order, and supervising and rehabilitating adjudicated individuals who pose a threat to the public. The secretary of the department directs state law enforcement and correctional programs overseeing the Maryland State Police, State Fire Marshal, Division of Parole and Probation, and several advisory boards.

The state assumed responsibility for corrections in the early nineteenth century with the establishment of the Maryland Penitentiary in 1811 (Resolution 32, Acts of 1804) and the Maryland House of Correction in 1879 (Chapter 233, Acts of 1874). In the twentieth century, additional correctional facilities were established including the Maryland State Penal Farm, later the Maryland Correctional Institution, in 1931; Women's Prison of the State of Maryland in 1941; Patuxent Institution in 1951; Maryland Correctional Training Center at Hagerstown in 1966; Maryland Correctional Institution at Jessup in 1981; Roxbury Correctional Institution at Hagerstown in 1983; and Eastern Correctional Institution at Westover in 1987.

The role of the Maryland State Police began in 1914 when the commissioner of motor vehicles was authorized to employ motorcycle deputies to patrol the highways. The Maryland State Police was officially organized in 1935 (Chapter 303, Acts of 1935) to enforce state motor vehicle and criminal laws and safeguard the lives and safety of all persons within the state. Acting with statewide jurisdiction except in incorporated municipalities, the state police protect property and assist persons to secure the equal protection of the law. The agency also preserves the public peace, detects and prevents crime, enforces the laws and ordinances of the state, apprehends and arrests criminals, preserves order in public places, maintains safe traffic, and enforces laws relating to controlled dangerous substances.

The State Emergency Management and Civil Defense Agency began in 1950 following the passage of the Federal Civil Defense Act (Public Law 920, 81st Congress) providing for a civil defense system to protect life and property from attack and provide relief and assistance to those struck by disasters. Originally known as the Maryland Civil Defense Agency, the agency dealt primarily with the concern over statewide nuclear attack preparedness (Chpater 563, Acts of 1949) in the years following World War II. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, a federal change in focus to natural disaster preparedness seen in the disaster relief acts of 1969, 1970, and 1974, was reflected in changes in state law and an agency name change to the Maryland Civil Defense and Emergency Planning Agency in 1970 and Maryland Civil Defense and Disaster Preparedness Agency in 1975.

New responsibilities associated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, created in 1979, included floodplain management, flood insurance initiatives, community preparedness programs for weather emergencies, earthquake hazard reduction, dam safety, emergency broadcast system, emergency warning, and terrorist incidents. Nuclear attack preparedness missions continued into the 1970's, and radiological emergency planning was emphasized in the early 1980's. In 1981, the agency became the State Emergency Management and Civil Defense Agency (Chapter 505, Acts of 1981) and the governor was given responsibility for emergency management in the state. The agency was renamed the Maryland Emergency Management Agency and transferred to the Military Department in 1989 (Chapter 674, Acts of 1989). The Civil Defense Agency was predated by the Maryland Council of Defense, 1917-1920, 1941-1945 (Chapter 24, Acts of Special Session 1917; Chapter 567, Acts of 1941; Chapter 602, Acts of 1943).