WESTOVER, MD - One of Somerset County's largest Maryland employers got a little bit bigger recently with the opening of a new $1.4 million housing unit at Eastern Correctional Institution (ECI).

A part of the institution's minimum security annex, the 140-bed facility, named the Dorchester Housing Unit, includes a drug rehabilitation and education center - the first of its kind in Maryland - that could serve as a prototype for other institutions throughout the state. An estimated 85 percent of all inmates in Maryland reportedly suffer from substance abuse problems.

ECI's minimum security annex holds about 560 inmates in five housing units, separate from the 3,000-capacity medium security state prison that constitutes the majority of the institution. The new rehabilitation and education center is planned to serve non-violent offenders housed in the minimum security annex.

The new housing unit and center are part of a statewide push for rehabilitation among minimum security inmates. Corrections officials hope such initiatives help curb repeat offenses that often land inmates in prison.

The state's second in-house prison drug rehabilitation and education center is being constructed at the Maryland Division of Correction's North Branch super-maximum security prison near Baltimore. That center, as well as the one at ECI, is expected to offer counseling and other services for inmates.