Baltimore’s new police commissioner Anthony Batts says the city has a new gang problem and gangs are responsible for the recent increases in crime. “I was told,” the Baltimore Sun quotes him as saying, “that what [Black Guerilla Family is] doing is expanding and taxing other gangs, basically franchising out. If [those gangs] don’t want […]
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Is chocolate the real gateway drug?
Tuesday, January 22, 2013You’ve probably heard about the term “gateway drug.” Generally, the theory posits, a gateway drug is the first drug a person takes that then leads them on the way to “harsher” drugs and ultimately leads the way to addiction. Recently, a report was published in the Journal of School Health concluding that alcohol is the new gateway drug, displacing marijuana from this infamous label.
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Death, Life Without Parole & Legislating Extreme Punishment
Saturday, January 19, 2013Maryland lawmakers have a real chance this legislative session to vote to abolish the state’s death penalty. This makes it an opportune time to examine the growing body of research and reflection on America’s increasing use of sentences of “life without parole”(LWOP) and their relationship to the broad national trend toward capital punishment abolition. Nowhere […]
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No new youth jail for Baltimore but we must end the practice of charging youth as adults
Friday, January 18, 2013This 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.
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Looking closely at the data and improving our schools
Monday, January 14, 2013Maryland’s public schools are among the nation’s finest, ranking at the top in numerous national studies. This is something to celebrate, because it means children are getting a running start to a successful future. Unfortunately, not every child has the same experience.
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A Beginning: The Goucher Prison Education Partnership
Sunday, January 13, 2013“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 […]
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The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement
Friday, January 11, 2013As part of OSI-Baltimore’s “Talking About Race” series, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch will discuss his upcoming new book,The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement, and the importance of making history accessible for today’s youth…
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Reading beyond comfort
Tuesday, January 08, 2013Finding levers of change is a tricky business—they are often drawn from a combination of existing knowledge, pure instinct and imagination. As OSI-Baltimore works to find solutions to persistent problems relating to education, criminal justice and addiction, it is critical to keep our thinking fresh and expansive. Given that, I’ve made a 2013 New Year’s resolution to take the time to read in more depth and to read more widely, particularly by exposing myself to different points of view.
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Prostitution and Policing: A Model
Sunday, January 06, 2013“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 […]
