Reducing pretrial detention in Maryland

Editor’s note: In conjunction with OSI-Baltimore’s forum series, The Burden of Bail, Audacious Ideas is pleased to feature a month-long blog series about pre-trial detention and bail reform. This is the last post in the series.

It can be fairly said, the events of the past four months have advanced in a positive way, the right to counsel in Maryland. The plaintiffs, public defenders and advocacy groups in the Richmond litigation and before the legislature have shed light like never before on the unfairness and injustices in the pretrial detention of poor people in the State of Maryland.

Fighting for the right to counsel in every courtroom

Editor’s note: In conjunction with OSI-Baltimore’s forum series, The Burden of Bail, Audacious Ideas is pleased to feature a month-long blog series about pre-trial detention and bail reform. Over the next month, four experts will talk about what can be done to make our pre-trial justice system fair and efficient.

The Supreme Court has held that a person cannot be sentenced to even a single day in jail if they are convicted of a crime unless they are afforded representation at trial. Yet in far too many places in the country, and throughout all of Maryland, people are arrested and remanded into custody in a proceeding without the benefit of counsel.

Keeping pretrial justice fair

Editor’s note: In conjunction with OSI-Baltimore’s upcoming forum series, The Burden of Bail, Audacious Ideas is pleased to feature a month-long blog series about pre-trial detention and bail reform. Over the next month, four experts will talk about what can be done to make our pre-trial justice system fair and efficient.

I remember when my elementary school teacher explained the US system of justice to us during Civics class. “Justice is blind,” she said, “everyone gets treated the same, regardless of whether they are rich or poor.” Yet as you read this, more people are held in jail in America simply because they cannot afford to pay their bond set by the court than for any other reason!

Legal representation at an accused’s first appearance following arrest

Editor’s note: In conjunction with OSI-Baltimore’s upcoming forum series, The Burden of Bail, Audacious Ideas is pleased to feature a month-long blog series about pre-trial detention and bail reform. Over the next month, four experts will talk about what can be done to make our pre-trial justice system fair and efficient.

You probably thought that in 2012, Maryland indigent defendants would be guaranteed counsel when their liberty is first at stake. Not so.

A stain that never goes away

According to the Just Kids Report, each year Maryland charges 1,250 youth as adults with little concern or attention to the stain this places on the life of a young person. Youth charged as adults are forced to carry the burden of a felony for the rest of their lives.

Take the politics out of parole

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the Maryland Parole Commission’s responsibilities is deciding whether someone serving a parole -eligible life sentence should be allowed to return to the community.

Preventing homelessness

Health Care for the Homeless was pleased last month to release a new report exploring the relationships among homelessness, incarceration, and re-entry in Baltimore. Student interns, HCH staff, and dozens of people who have themselves experienced homelessness and incarceration spent long hours listening to more than 400 men and women who had been released from jail or prison within the past ten years.

Keeping youth out of adult jail

Maryland automatically charges youth as adults for certain offenses and detains them in adult jails pretrial, before any finding of guilt. These practices don’t work to reduce crime or rehabilitate youth.

Shrink jails and increase services for women who need them

Crime is falling in Baltimore and fewer women are being held in the Baltimore city jail. Plans developed several years ago to build a large women’s jail facility at a cost of roughly $181 million were based on a prediction of increasing crime rates and higher jail populations that never materialized. Clearly, these plans should […]

The truth about audacity

If you have big goals for significant and lasting change in Baltimore, you need to be audacious. But in addition, you have to partner with patience and persistence—and with the many others in our city who share the vision of opportunity for all. So our goals for 2011 are the same as they have been […]