For more than two decades, the Prince George’s County jail has repeatedly been the target of policy reviews, changes and expansions all designed to fix gaps in a system that has been plagued with problems.

Critics say county officials’ latest attempt to heal the broken jail with an independent review announced Friday is just another step in the constantly turning cycle.

“In light of recent incidents that have occurred at the corrections center ... [County Executive Jack] Johnson believed it was necessary and appropriate to have an independent evaluation from top to bottom at the jail,” a county spokesman wrote in a news release.

Since the beginning of this year, jail officials have been under fire from reports that employees were distributing cell phones to, and turning tricks with, inmates. Director Alfred McMurray was fired last month when guns disappeared from a lockbox. And then accused police killer Ronnie White was strangled in his solitary-confinement cell two weeks ago.

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The jail’s problems and commitments to fix them started long before 2008.

Just last fall, it was revealed that there hadn’t been a single parole hearing in a year’s time, and McMurray vowed that changes were in the works.

In 1982, a Washington Post series revealed that two dozen inmates had been brutally raped, which led to a director’s downfall, and four years later the county opened a new $33 million jail only to have four inmates escape a year later. Troubles persisted in the late 1990s, when the county and 18 corrections officers were sued for beating inmates.

Zalee Harris, who is pushing the creation of a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People branch in Prince George’s, said an independent review, like the $25,000 one set to be conducted by the American Correctional Association later this month, should have been performed at the first signs of trouble.

“They’re pacifying the people with symbolism without substance,” Harris said.

Harris questioned why there weren’t cameras watching White’s cell the day he was killed.

A similar question was raised by a 1982 Washington Post columnist who wrote in reference to the rapes: “if the jail is so poorly designed that the guards cannot easily see the inside of the cell, how about some strategically placed mirrors, or closed-circuit TV monitors?”

For his part, Johnson said of the latest review, “I want the public to know we will leave no stone unturned in ensuring this facility is run efficiently and with all the safeguards necessary to run a top-shelf institution.”

fklopott@dcexaminer.com