MISSION DATA Department of State Police Report on Fixed Wing and the Extradition Program September 18, 2013 The King Air 350 transports over 100 prisoners per year not only for the Maryland State Police (MSP), and other county/municipal local law enforcement agencies (police and sheriff offices), such as:Anne Arundel, Baltimore City/County, Carroll, Frederick (city/county), Harford, Howard, Montgomery, Wicomico, Charles, Queen Anne, and Talbot Counties, to name a few, in addition to the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Parole & Probation and Department of Corrections and Natural Resources Police have benefited from the safe and reliability of the Aviation Command aircraft. The MSP Extradition Unit along with a number of allied agencies and their respective State's Attorney Office have stated that they absolutely need to utilize the MSP aircraft, which provides safe transport Maryland'smost violent felons, which helps keep their office in operation, as their budgets are limited. The cost for allied agencies to do their own extraditions would rise dramatically, resulting in a substantial increase in their budgets. In the 6 month period (February - August, 2013) 62 prisoners (thirty-seven actual flights) have been transported. Eighty percent of the Command's extraditions are in support of MSP operations. ALTERNATIVES Commercial Airlines: MSP frequently transports known/identified violent fugitives who simply pose too great a risk to public safety, to be taken commercially, per Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) regulations. Prisoners may use offensive language, threaten the flight crew, and often need to be physically restrained. There have been instances when inmates have urinated/defecated during transport. Thus, utilizing the MSP owned King Air accompanied by sworn police officers for each prisoner ensures oversight and control, which minimizes the general public from having to be exposed to identified violent felons and reduces the chances of incident, and unfavorable light on Maryland State government. Fugitives have become problematic at airports and on commercial flights, which result in the sworn police officer being asked to immediately remove the prisoner from the flight. TSA regulations prohibit high risk prisoners on commercial aircraft, only allowing low or medium risk fugitives. It must be noted, some airlines no longer allow fugitives to be transported, with restraint devices regardless of their threat level (Southwest Airlines). Recently, two allied agencies experienced problems while transporting prisoners commercially and were denied seats for their prisoners. In both instances the agencies only recourse was to rent vehicles and drive, in excess of 900 miles back to Maryland with their inmate. 1
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Department of State Police Report on Fixed Wing and the Extradition
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MISSION DATA
Department of State Police Report on
Fixed Wing and the Extradition Program
September 18, 2013
The King Air 350 transports over 100 prisoners per year not only for the Maryland State Police (MSP),
and other county/municipal local law enforcement agencies (police and sheriff offices), such as:Anne
Arundel, Baltimore City/County, Carroll, Frederick (city/county), Harford, Howard, Montgomery,
Wicomico, Charles, Queen Anne, and Talbot Counties, to name a few, in addition to the Department of
Public Safety and Correctional Services, Parole & Probation and Department of Corrections and Natural
Resources Police have benefited from the safe and reliability of the Aviation Command aircraft. The MSP
Extradition Unit along with a number of allied agencies and their respective State's Attorney Office have
stated that they absolutely need to utilize the MSP aircraft, which provides safe transport
Maryland'smost violent felons, which helps keep their office in operation, as their budgets are limited.
The cost for allied agencies to do their own extraditions would rise dramatically, resulting in a
substantial increase in their budgets.
In the 6 month period (February - August, 2013) 62 prisoners (thirty-seven actual flights) have been
transported. Eighty percent of the Command's extraditions are in support of MSP operations.
ALTERNATIVES
Commercial Airlines:
MSP frequently transports known/identified violent fugitives who simply pose too great a risk to public
safety, to be taken commercially, per Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) regulations. Prisoners
may use offensive language, threaten the flight crew, and often need to be physically restrained. There
have been instances when inmates have urinated/defecated during transport. Thus, utilizing the MSP
owned King Air accompanied by sworn police officers for each prisoner ensures oversight and control,
which minimizes the general public from having to be exposed to identified violent felons and reduces
the chances of incident, and unfavorable light on Maryland State government.
Fugitives have become problematic at airports and on commercial flights, which result in the sworn
police officer being asked to immediately remove the prisoner from the flight. TSA regulations prohibit
high risk prisoners on commercial aircraft, only allowing low or medium risk fugitives. It must be noted,
some airlines no longer allow fugitives to be transported, with restraint devices regardless of their
threat level (Southwest Airlines). Recently, two allied agencies experienced problems while transporting
prisoners commercially and were denied seats for their prisoners. In both instances the agencies only
recourse was to rent vehicles and drive, in excess of 900 miles back to Maryland with their inmate.
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Routinely, officers are delayed at prisons, for unknown reasons, while waiting for the release of their
prisoners. These delays have caused flights to be missed. If a flight is missed, TSA regulations prohibit
transport if not completed within same day; resulting in tickets not refunded and new tickets needing to
be purchased. Having the flexibility to operate regardless of airline schedules and to travel to airports in
close proximity to detaining facilities drastically reduces both cost and associated staff hours needed to
accomplish the mission. While occasionally a prisoner can be transported to an airport that is serviced
by the commercial airlines, the majority of prisons are located away from these facilities but still close to
smaller airports that can be utilized by general aviation aircraft. The Command's King Air often
transports multiple prisoners, thus reducing the cost per extradition.
Ground Transportation:
Prisoner transportation companies such as Prisoner Transport Service and Court Services offer ground
transportation but cannot assure the prisoner will be delivered by a requested date, which is often
needed to satisfy mandated court dates. One ofthe nation's largest transportation companies,
TransCor, stopped transportation for prisoners in 2008 because of liability and cost. '
The downside to ground transportation is first and foremost the risk to public safety and that of the staff
conducting the escort. A great deal of research is involved when soliciting a reliable ground transport
company. Their security certificate, experience, track record/history, training of staff, vehicles,
equipment, staff-inmate ratio for long-distance transporting, and other factors need to be considered.
Ground transportation also limits the distance in which the state of Maryland will transport the inmates.
Consequently, traveling beyond some areas of the east coast can be taxing on staff and prisoners.
Transporters must take into account the need for layovers wherein coordination with a local jailor
prison is warranted. Medical issues, food accommodations and lodging for prisoners and staff are an
issue and additional cost. The number of staff required to provide adequate security and alternate
drivers is also increased. Health issues are not easily resolved or may be exacerbated by long distance
ground transport.
The terrain and territory traveled is not always conducive for transporting inmates. Finding acceptable
means for accommodating bathroom breaks becomes difficult on a long stretch of uninhabited road.
This increases the risk of escape or inmate manipulation. Crossing state lines involves different law
enforcement regulations impacted by the transport.
Air Charter:
Regarding chartered air service, cost for the aircraft per hour would be higher than what it costs the
MSP to perform the extradition.
OTHER MISSIONS
1) Law enforcement missions that include search and rescue, speed enforcement, and Homeland
Security.
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2) Natural Resource Police missions include boating law enforcement, jack lighting, turkey baiting,
and crab/oyster poaching.
3) Personnel transportation missions to include the Governor and his associates, maintenance
personnel, criminal investigators and the State's Attorney office.
WHEN THE AIRCRAFTWAS DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE
During the period that the King Air was out of service for required maintenance, the Department of
Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) began to curtail their request for out-of-state (Interstate
Corrections Compact) inmate transfers. They paid additional costs (commercial flights) for those cases
that had been approved or for emergency transports. They coordinated with other states to transport
our inmates after transporting theirs to Maryland, when possible. They also coordinated efforts with the
Department's Security Operations Unit (SOU) for ground transports, when possible. They were simply
unable to respond to certain transportation needs for court, protection, violence reduction, and
medical/mental health reasons.
Extraditions that occurred were conducted primarily via commercial flight Dr ground transport. One
problem associated with commercial flight is that some inmates are not good candidates for commercial
flights and/or the airlines will not allow them to fly under our conditions. Many of these transports
were deferred and DPSCS lost credibility with other states housing our inmates due to the inability to
remove or move them as requested. This situation was also true for scheduled court hearings that
were missed for this same reason.
There was one occasion where DPSCS used a ground transport company to return a violent Maryland
inmate from Washington State. Due to the inmate's propensity for violence and King Air being out of
commission, they paid a substantial cost to return him to Maryland. Cost may be obtained from Patricia
Moore of DPSCS.
Violence and protection issues are among the reasons transportation of inmates is needed. DPSCS
administrative segregation units and protective custody units are overcrowded. Holding these inmates
in usable beds has impacted our use of beds and bottle necked our process.
Similar risk factors are involved for commercial flights. However, many airlines will simply not allow
high-risk inmates in restraints to be transported with the general public.
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BUDGET
Mission and flight hour cost analysis:
Each flight hour cost approximately $1,391.43 (Fuel + Maintenance + Hull Insurance + Pilot Cost)
1) Fuel Cost: $648 per flight hour (120 gallons per flight hour @ $5.40 per gallon)
2) Maintenance Cost: $242 per flight hour (per Conklin and Decker)
3) Hull Insurance Cost: $52.39 per flight hour or $16,325 per year
4) Pilot Cost (2 pilots): $449.04 per flight hour (Salary x 2 divided by average hours flown per
year)
Average Cost per Extradition in 2013 is $2,922 (Avg. 2.1 flight hours per Extradition x $1313.43)
Cost percentage assumptions as requested:
Total cost for Extraditions for the 6 month period from February to August, 2013 = $ 182,416.47
(131.1 flight hours x $1391.43 = $ 182,416.47)
MSP percentage (82%) = $ 149,581.50
Allied Agencies percentage (18%) = $32,834.96
The Maryland State Police Extradition Unit does not have a designated budget. However, in Fiscal Year