Members of the OSI-Baltimore-funded Coalition for a Safe and Just Maryland (CSJM) have made series of media appearances in recent weeks, renewing the fight for bail reform months after the state legislature turned back an attempt by the bail industry to roll back the unanimous state appeals court ruling requiring judges to consider non-financial pretrial conditions before bail.
Lawrence Grandpre, Director of Research at Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, and Doug Colbert, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, both representing coalition member organizations, appeared on the Marc Steiner show as part of a roundtable discussion about the new rules governing the use of bail, which went into effect July 1.
Doug Colbert also published “Mandatory sentencing doesn’t work,” in the Baltimore Sun recently. And Mary-Denise Davis, from the Office of the Public Defender, another coalition member, also published an op-ed on re-entry and expungement in the Baltimore Sun, “Baltimore community programs help residents, reduce crime.”
CSJM includes more than a dozen community, advocacy, and academic groups focusing on reforming the state’s bail system. The Open Society Policy Center, a non-partisan and non-profit advocacy group that is part of Open Society Foundations, is among the coalition members and Tara Huffman, director of OSI-Baltimore’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program, organized the effort.
