As a burial ceremony was ending to the sound of "Taps" at Crownsville Veterans Cemetery last week, half a dozen prisoners in neon jumpsuits were busy watering the grass and trimming the hedges of the 103-acre cemetery.

And each of them could one day be buried there.

Maryland's prison system has been known more for its violence than its community outreach in recent years, but Gary Maynard, the new state secretary of public safety and correctional services, is trying to change that. Using military veterans serving time in minimum security prisons to clean up military cemeteries is part of a strategy to give prisoners a stake in...