Last week, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation that, if fully implemented, will begin to bring an end to years of mass incarceration in Maryland by prioritizing drug treatment over prison, improving parole practices to better support release and reintegration, and doing away with racially unjust mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. The Justice […]
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General Assembly Takes Big Steps to Reform Maryland’s Criminal Justice System
Wednesday, April 20, 2016 -
New video latest proof that Baltimore police need de-escalation training
Tuesday, April 19, 2016“This is my house.” It was the statement 18-year-old Tionne Jones made while standing in the doorway of his home in the 1800 block of Barclay St. in the Greenmount West neighborhood. He made it last Saturday to a Baltimore City police lieutenant who asked to talk to the property owner. When Tionne told the […]
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Baltimore’s Mayoral Race Gets National Coverage
Tuesday, April 19, 2016The Baltimore mayoral race is heating up, and gaining attention outside of Maryland. Much of it is focusing on the candidates through the lens of Freddie Gray’s death and the uprising, the one-year anniversary of which coincides with the primary election in Maryland. The New York Times and Huffington Post recently published pieces on the […]
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Baltimore City students stage walkout protesting standardized testing
Monday, April 18, 2016Holding signs with messages like “Jobs Not Jail,” “Park the PARCC,” and “We are students, not test scores,” about 100 students across Baltimore City walked out of their classrooms Friday afternoon to protest the PARCC standardized test, which they call a “mechanism of institutional racism.” The walkout culminated at a rally in front of the […]
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Record Turnout for Maryland Primary Election Early Voting
Friday, April 15, 2016Long lines greeted Marylanders casting ballots as polling places opened for early voting Thursday with record turnout. According to the Baltimore Sun, when the polls closed at 8:30pm on the first day, about 5,000 people had cast ballots in Baltimore — more than four times the number of the first day of early voting in […]
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Harm Reduction makes gains at 2016 General Assembly
Friday, April 15, 2016Even though no harm reduction-related bills passed during the just-completed 2016 General Assembly, it was still a good session for harm reduction advocates, says Scott Nolen, director of OSI’s drug addiction treatment program, in a City Paper op-ed. Del. Daniel Morhaim’s comprehensive package of bills designed to change the way we look at drug addiction—from […]
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Listen to OSI and Stoop Storytelling’s Stoop Mayoral Show
Thursday, April 14, 2016Last night, OSI-Baltimore and Stoop Storytelling presented the Stoop Mayoral Show, giving the city’s mayoral candidates a chance to tell stories about their first jobs. So if you ever wanted to hear Elizabeth Embry talk about being a fry cook or Catherine Pugh recall her time as a stock girl, here’s your chance… It was at […]
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Conferences Address the Need to Build Equity in our Schools
Wednesday, April 13, 2016Pictured: U.S. Department of Education General Counsel James Cole, Jr. addresses the Urban Child Symposium at the University of Baltimore School of Law. By Karen Webber There was a flurry of informative education conferences in the area this month and I was honored to be a speaker on two of the three conferences I attended […]
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OSI Fellow Brings Monument Quilt, Healing to Baltimore
Tuesday, April 12, 2016Traffic was stopped along two blocks of North Avenue Sunday afternoon to make room for the Monument Quilt, a crowd-sourced display of 1,000 8′ x 8′ squares of red fabric bearing stories and messages of empowerment from rape and sexual assault survivors and their allies. The event, called “Not Alone Baltimore,” was organized by Baltimore-based activist […]
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School psychologists to hold benefit for OSI-Baltimore
Sunday, April 10, 2016The Baltimore City Association of School Psychologists will hold a benefit at Langermann’s on April 25 to support OSI-Baltimore’s Education and Youth Development (EYD) program. EYD director Karen Webber will speak at the event. The menu for the evening includes a broad range of the Canton restaurant’s Southern-inspired cuisine, including some kosher-for-Passover items, since the event […]
