MD DOC - Maryland Correctional Training Center (MCTC)

The Maryland Correctional Training Center (MCTC) is a medium-security men's state prison at 18800 Roxbury Road in Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland. Operated by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) through its Division of Correction, MCTC is one of Maryland's larger state prisons, holding roughly 3,000 men, and sits within the Hagerstown corrections cluster that also includes the neighboring Roxbury Correctional Institution and Maryland Correctional Institution — Hagerstown (MCIH). Under Warden Cleveland Friday (with Assistant Warden James Wilson, Acting Security Chief Charles Conley, and Acting Facility Administrator Joel Wilt), MCTC serves as a common medium-custody destination for many men serving state sentences in Maryland after intake at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center (MRDCC) in Baltimore. Visitation runs Saturdays and Sundays 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., JPay handles money transfers (with ConnectNetwork as GTL/ViaPath's authorized deposit portal), and mail must be composed on plain paper without decorated wrappers. This guide walks through what families need to know.

About MCTC and the Hagerstown corrections cluster

The Maryland Correctional Training Center is one of Maryland's oldest and largest state prisons for men, part of the Hagerstown-area corrections cluster in western Maryland's Washington County. MCTC operates alongside its neighbors — Roxbury Correctional Institution and Maryland Correctional Institution — Hagerstown (MCIH) — on the Roxbury Road corridor, with the three facilities effectively forming a medium-security regional hub for the state's men's prison population. MCTC is one of the most common destinations for men serving state sentences in Maryland after they complete intake at the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center (MRDCC) in Baltimore.

Under Warden Cleveland Friday, the MCTC leadership team includes Assistant Warden James Wilson, Acting Security Chief Charles Conley, and Acting Facility Administrator Joel Wilt (overseeing the HED/EHU housing units). Every incarcerated person in Maryland's state system is assigned a DOC ID (SID) number that follows them across facilities and is required on every letter, deposit, and visit form. Because DPSCS moves people between institutions as classification, program, and disciplinary needs change, confirm the current facility through DPSCS's inmate locator or by searching on AllRecentArrests.us before mailing or traveling.

Visitation at MCTC: Saturday and Sunday 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

DPSCS conducts visitation at MCTC on Saturdays and Sundays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. All visits require the visitor to be pre-approved on the incarcerated person's list. To register, complete DPSCS's visitor application (available on the department's website or through the facility), submit it for a background check, and, once approved, schedule visits through DPSCS's scheduling process. Because MCTC is a large facility with roughly 3,000 men, schedules and slot availability can vary by housing unit; call (240) 420-1601 to confirm your slot and that the facility is on normal program (as opposed to a lockdown or modified program).

Bring a valid government-issued photo ID, dress within DPSCS's visiting-room rules (no clothing resembling inmate uniforms, no revealing clothing, no gang colors, no open-toed shoes), and expect a full search on arrival. Bring only limited cash for vending machines and leave phones and everything else in the vehicle.

How to send money to an MCTC inmate: JPay and ConnectNetwork

Maryland DPSCS uses JPay as its authorized electronic money-transfer platform for inmate trust deposits. You can deposit online at jpay.com with a debit or credit card, deposit by phone through JPay's toll-free number, or mail a money order to JPay's lockbox per the current deposit-slip instructions. Additionally, ConnectNetwork is GTL/ViaPath's authorized deposit and account-management portal, typically used for funding phone accounts and other communications services.

Standard per-transaction fees apply for JPay deposits and scale with deposit amount. Balances follow the inmate across DPSCS transfers, so deposits made at MCTC are not lost if he is moved to another Maryland facility. Money orders should always include the inmate's full name, DOC/SID number, and your return address. Our overviews of how to send money to an inmate and the JPay process cover the mechanics.

Mail to an MCTC inmate: plain paper, no decorations

Personal mail for MCTC inmates goes to Inmate Name and DOC/SID Number, Maryland Correctional Training Center, 18800 Roxbury Road, Hagerstown, MD 21746. All mail is subject to examination for contraband, and DPSCS explicitly requires correspondence to be composed on plain paper with wrappers that do not contain any decorations. Include your full return address; envelopes without one are frequently rejected. Legal mail from an attorney or court, clearly marked as legal correspondence, is opened only in the inmate's presence and should be sent separately from personal letters.

Follow DPSCS's prohibited-items rules: no cash, personal checks, stamps, stickers, glitter, glue, tape, staples, paperclips, Polaroids, hardcover books, musical or embellished cards, or anything with electronics. Photocopied and printed photos are typically acceptable. Books and publications generally must come directly from the publisher or an approved online retailer. Our how to send mail to an inmate covers the format and common rejection triggers in more depth.

Phone calls, JPay messaging, and legal mail

Phone service at MCTC is provided through ViaPath/GTL (Global Tel*Link) with prepaid family accounts through ConnectNetwork or collect calls. Maryland has taken steps to lower per-minute call rates in recent years but rates remain higher than the federal BOP or California's free-call model. JPay also offers electronic messaging (JPay email) for a per-message fee, delivered to the inmate on a tablet or kiosk — significantly faster than USPS. Our guide to calling an inmate covers setup.

Legal or privileged mail from an attorney or court, clearly marked as legal correspondence, is opened only in the inmate's presence. For urgent family emergencies, call MCTC at (240) 420-1601 and ask to have the chaplain's office relay the message. If you are worried about a loved one's medical care, mental health, or safety inside, contact DPSCS directly, keep a written record of who you spoke with and when, and escalate in writing if the initial response is inadequate.

Western Maryland travel and the Hagerstown cluster context

MCTC's Hagerstown location in western Maryland is accessible from Baltimore (about 90 minutes), DC (about 90 minutes), and points in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley or Pennsylvania's south-central region. Interstate 70 runs through Hagerstown, providing the main east-west approach from Baltimore, Frederick, and points east. Because MCTC, Roxbury CI, and MCIH are three separate facilities on adjacent campuses, families with loved ones at multiple Hagerstown-area institutions can sometimes coordinate visits to different facilities in a single day, though each facility has its own separate visitor-approval process and scheduling.

Your first steps if a loved one just arrived at MCTC

If someone you love has just been transferred to Maryland Correctional Training Center, focus first on the essentials: write down their DOC/SID number and confirm placement through the DPSCS Inmate Locator, submit a visitor application for approval to visit on Saturdays or Sundays 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m., set up a JPay account for deposits and messaging (at jpay.com or by phone), set up a ConnectNetwork account for phone service, register your phone number with ViaPath for calls, and use the 18800 Roxbury Road address for personal letters on plain paper with legal mail clearly marked. As a release or parole date approaches, our guides on life after prison, finding work after prison, and applying for SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF after release cover what comes next.

The Hagerstown corrections cluster: MCTC, Roxbury CI, and MCIH

The Hagerstown-area DPSCS cluster of MCTC, Roxbury Correctional Institution, and Maryland Correctional Institution — Hagerstown collectively holds a significant portion of Maryland's men's state-prison population in the west of the state. Each of the three facilities operates independently with its own warden, visitation schedule, and mailing address, though they share regional administrative infrastructure. If your loved one is transferred between these three facilities as classification changes, expect to update your visitation approval and mail routing at each move — approved-visitor status on the inmate's list generally transfers within DPSCS, but the specific institution's rules and slot scheduling are facility-specific.

Working with Maryland DPSCS from out of state

Because Hagerstown is close to Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia borders, some families visiting MCTC drive from out of state. Maryland DPSCS's visitor-approval process works the same for out-of-state visitors as for in-state visitors, but background-check processing may reference records across state lines and can take slightly longer if prior arrests or convictions exist. Bring a state-issued photo ID or US passport for identification.

Maryland's 13 state prisons, and where they are

Because this record is not itself a custody facility, the numbers worth knowing belong to the two that are. The most recent federal jail census, covering 2026, counted them separately:

• Eastern Correctional Institution, Westover
• Maryland Correctional Training Center, Hagerstown
• Maryland Correctional Institution — Hagerstown
• Roxbury Correctional Institution, Hagerstown
• Jessup Correctional Institution, Jessup
• Maryland Correctional Institution — Jessup
• Maryland Correctional Institution for Women, Jessup
• Dorsey Run Correctional Facility, Jessup
• Patuxent Institution, Jessup
• North Branch Correctional Institution, Cumberland
• Western Correctional Institution, Cumberland
• Central Maryland Correctional Facility, Sykesville
• Baltimore City Correctional Center, Baltimore

Knowing the list is practical because transfers are announced by institution name and nothing else. Nine of the thirteen are clustered at Jessup, Hagerstown and Cumberland, and Cumberland is about three hours from Baltimore — so a move between two Maryland prisons can change a visit from an afternoon into a whole day.

Those are census figures for a single reporting year and are now several years old, so treat them as the scale of each facility rather than a current count. Neither figure describes this record — this address is the hospital, and it holds no one on its own authority.

What records still exist for the Maryland Correctional Training Center

Closing a prison does not erase its statistical record. The department continues to publish pre-closure reports for this institution, including facility pages for each of the 13 state prisons, carrying visiting schedules and contact details and Division of Pretrial Detention information covering the Baltimore City facilities.

These are worth knowing about if you are reconstructing a timeline — confirming when someone was held here, what the conditions and population were at the time, or supporting a claim that depends on how the institution was operating. They are statistical rather than individual, so they will not contain a named person's file; for that you need a records request to the department rather than a published report.

Inside the Maryland Correctional Training Center: how the facility is laid out

the Maryland Correctional Training Center has been in operation since 1966. It holds people at Medium, Minimum and Pre-Release.

Running medium, minimum and pre-release populations on one site means the institution spans most of the route out of custody, and a reclassification can change someone's conditions substantially without them moving address.

Layout matters more than families expect. Which yard or unit someone is assigned to drives their custody level, their program eligibility, and often their visiting schedule — so when you call, having the housing assignment to hand will get you a useful answer faster than the name alone.

Who runs the Maryland Correctional Training Center

The senior official on site is Cleveland Friday. Naming the warden is not just trivia: correspondence about a serious unresolved problem should be addressed to that post rather than to the institution generally, because a letter to a named office creates a record that a call to a switchboard does not.

The institution's main line is (240) 420-1601, with a toll-free line on (877) 692-8136. Use it for anything urgent — a medical emergency, a safety concern, confirming whether visiting is running — and ask for the watch commander or the shift supervisor rather than leaving a message with whoever answers.

Visiting the Maryland Correctional Training Center: the current schedule

the Maryland Correctional Training Center receives visitors on Saturday and Sunday, across four time slots between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m..

Two things about that schedule are worth knowing before you drive. Published hours are when the visiting room is open, not when you can arrive — processing closes well before the room does, and arriving inside the last hour often means being turned away. And a published schedule is suspended more often than it is changed: lockdowns, staffing shortages, and medical isolation all cancel visiting at short notice, usually without the website being updated.

In-person visits last one hour and are subject to space availability, with up to three visitors regardless of age. The institution also runs virtual visitation for the general population on weekday evenings, Monday to Friday between 4:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., which is often the more practical option if you cannot reach Hagerstown at a weekend. A dress code is enforced, with specific restrictions on tank tops, shorts and form-fitting clothing — being turned away at the gate for clothing is common and entirely avoidable.

Call the institution the morning you travel and ask specifically whether visiting is running on your family member's yard or unit — not whether the prison is open. Those are different questions, and the second one gets a misleadingly reassuring answer.

How to find someone in this department's custody

The department's official search tool is the department's inmate locator, at dpscs.maryland.gov. Maryland's split matters when you search. If the arrest was in Baltimore City, the person is in a State-run Division of Pretrial Detention facility. Anywhere else in Maryland, pretrial detention is a county detention centre run by that county, and the state locator will not be the right place to look until they are sentenced into state custody.

Reentry preparation timing from MCTC

Maryland DPSCS operates various reentry programs across its institutions, and MCTC as a medium-security men's facility often serves as a placement where men build toward release. Understanding your loved one's specific programming enrollment, projected release date, and post-release supervision plan (Maryland parole conditions, home detention, or other arrangements) helps the family plan for the transition. As the release date approaches, our overviews of life after prison, finding work after prison, and applying for SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF after release provide the practical reentry framework.