No new youth jail for Baltimore but we must end the practice of charging youth as adults

This week, Governor O’Malley’s administration announced that it will not build a $70 million 120-bed jail for youth who are charged as adults. Instead, it proposes spending $30 million to renovate an existing adult correctional facility that will be downsized to house up to 60 youth while they await their trials. Taking advantage of these savings, the administration also plans to build a treatment center for young people who are committed to the juvenile justice system and in need of residential treatment services. The total cost of these two ventures is estimated to be $73 million.

A Beginning: The Goucher Prison Education Partnership

“Just because one blind hog may occasionally find an acorn does not mean many other blind hogs will,” Rep. Bart Gordon (R-Tenn.) famously observed on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in April 1994. “The same principle applies to giving Federal Pell grants to prisoners.” Gordon and a majority of both Democrats and […]

Prostitution and Policing: A Model

“Prostitution and gambling have, like heroin and cocaine, generated enormous illegal markets in the past, been the source of corruption and the centerpiece of moralistic debates about prohibition,” writes University of Maryland professor Peter Rueter in Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, and Places. “Prostitution,”  Rueter and his co-author Robert MacCoun–professor at the […]

Baltimore and the “Enduring Neighborhood Effect”

In 2012 the concepts of “neighborhood” and “community” have made a big comeback in the language of law enforcement in Baltimore. January saw Baltimore State’s Attorney  roll out his plan for “community prosecutors.” Instead of having prosecutors take cases from across the city, district attorneys would now focus only on specific “zones” in Baltimore, with […]

Condemnation of Blackness: Crime, Numbers and Baltimore

December always brings an accounting. In the last month of the calendar year we sum our various categories of crime and we look for meaning in the numbers. We look to have the numbers speak for themselves. Policymakers, journalists, advocates, and law enforcement will point to the numbers to make their various arguments for what […]

Second Chance Education

A young man I have tutored for a few years recently got his GED. He left Baltimore City public schools in the fifth-grade. “Dropout” is not an appropriate description for a fifth-grader. Over a number of years he has spent time in juvenile detention, group homes, and the Baltimore City Detention Center. When I met […]

Racial differences in Maryland’s justice system raise civil rights concerns

This summer, the United States dominated the Summer Olympics by receiving more medals than any other country in the world. Sadly, the U.S. also leads the world in the number of people it incarcerates—about 2.3 million. And, most people in this country’s prisons and jails are disproportionately African American or Latino.

4 reasons why Baltimore doesn’t need another jail

Did you know that Maryland officials plan to spend almost $100 million dollars to build a new jail in Baltimore City? This jail would be used exclusively for youth, ages 14 through 17, who are arrested, charged as an adult and locked up as they wait for their trials to be held. In these hard economic times, we believe that a new jail is unnecessary and a waste of tax-payer dollars.

Survivors of sex trafficking are victims, not criminals

In addition to the abuse, coercive control and manipulation victims of human trafficking routinely face, many victims are arrested and convicted for crimes they are forced to engage in by their traffickers. This is particularly true for victims exploited through commercialized sex, who are commonly arrested for the crime of prostitution.

Sara’s crimmigration nightmare

Sara entered this country with a green card when she was 10 years old. She never became a citizen. When Sara was 19, she was caught shoplifting. She pleaded guilty to theft and was sentenced to one year, all time suspended. She served no jail time. Twelve years later, Sara has a husband and two young children. She works two jobs. She pays taxes every year. She is happy.

One day, Sara is arrested at work. Another worker wrongfully accused Sara of assault after a disagreement. Sara’s crimmigration nightmare begins.