One in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34 incarcerated in the United States?1 “Yet you have turned into venom the process of law and justice itself into poison.”2 As the Pew Center for the States released its report at the end of February, the numbers sent me reeling. Again. The astounding […]
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Make things work NOW
Tuesday, January 22, 2008We have to rethink the entire way to we fight crime and deal with our criminal justice system in our city. We can’t do anything locally about stopping the war on drugs or ending poverty in America. But we can reform local systems in our control to change people’s lives, build safe communities and make […]
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Give the public access to facts, not anecdote
Monday, January 07, 2008The December three-part series in the Baltimore Sun on buprenorphine, the drug approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 2002 for heroin addiction, compromised clarity and balance by burying key facts about the drug’s use and effectiveness and further exaggerated its potential abuse. Ostensibly motivated by a concern that potential abuse of buprenorphine was not […]
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Treatment or incarceration? The costs of failure for Baltimore and beyond
Monday, November 05, 2007Maryland legislators are trying to decide how to close the billion dollar budget gap. The choices so far are–raise taxes or cut spending. Enough said about raising taxes. But a good place to start cutting spending is the $76 million a year Maryland spends imprisoning people convicted of low-level drug offenses. Not only would we […]
