Archive

The Maryland Daily Record recently announced OSI-Baltimore 2014 Community Fellow Zina Makar will lead the new Pretrial Justice Clinic at the University of Baltimore School of Law. The clinic will focus on bail reform and pre-trial detention, “one of the major sources of mass incarceration in Maryland.” During her fellowship, Makar partnered with the Public Defender’s […]

Tara Huffman, director of OSI-Baltimore’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice program, joined the Marc Steiner show on Thursday and again on Monday to discuss the Department of Justice’s investigation of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), launched in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray (see OSI’s statement about the findings). On Thursday, she was joined by 2002 OSI Community Fellow […]

Student-led class in the Holistic Me afterschool program. Photo by Colby Ware   This week, Baltimore Board of Education announced plans to increase the number of police present in Baltimore City Public Schools. According to the Baltimore Sun, school officials, citing safety concerns and an effort to build relationships between officers and students, will reinstate […]

From the #unconvicted series. Photo by David Y. Lee Last week attorneys for the six officers charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray claimed, according to an article in the Baltimore Sun, the money they still owe to bail bondsmen as a condition of their pre-trail release is a “lingering injustice.” This week, […]

Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), and member of both the OSI-Baltimore Advisory Board and the Open Society Foundations Global Board, penned an op-ed that appeared this weekend in the Baltimore Sun. In “After Freddie Gray: looking to the future,” Ifill suggests community engagement in law enforcement reform is crucial […]

Dr. Wen with Scott Nolen, director of OSI’s Drug Addiction Treatment program   This weekend, the New York Times published a letter from Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana S. Wen in response to a previously published Times article that suggested naloxone, a medication used to treat opioid overdoses, can encourage addition. “Those who say that saving […]

President Barack Obama meets for lunch with formerly incarcerated individuals who have received commutations, at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C., March 30, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)   Last week, President Obama commuted the drug sentences of 214 federal prisoners— many of them serving time for non-violent drug offenses involving possession or […]

(Watch video here) This morning WYPR ran a great story about the changing dynamics of high school debate teams. The Eddie Conway Liberation Institute, run by the advocacy group Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (part of the Baltimore United for Change coalition, and OSI-Baltimore Justice Fund grantee) teaches students the core debate skills of in-depth, critical policy […]