The Open Society Institute-Baltimore endorses the closure of the Baltimore City Detention Center, a notorious facility that has, for decades, posed a serious risk to detainees, staff, family members and the broader Baltimore community. As the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services moves forward to end this shameful chapter in the state’s history, it is imperative that state and City stakeholders work together to leverage this unique opportunity to reduce unnecessary incarceration safely and to reinvest the savings to improve community safety.
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Affirming the Case for Student Voice
Wednesday, July 22, 2015There’s a whole body of research around restorative practices. The premise is that people are happier, more productive, and more likely to make positive changes when those in positions of authority do things with them, rather than to them or for them. In my ninth year now as a City principal, I have learned that when teachers and administrators give students voice—allowing them to speak up and for themselves—a culture develops that is conducive to learning.
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A systematic and compassionate response to addiction
Thursday, July 16, 2015During the Uprising in Baltimore, police said more than 27 pharmacies and two methadone clinics were looted for pain medications and other prescription drugs. City officials estimate that, as a result of looting, there are now more than 175,000 doses of prescription pain medications available for black market purchase.
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“The land of peace:” Calming down, speaking up
Tuesday, July 14, 2015If your only image of yoga involves White women in Lululemon garb, then you don’t know the Baltimore-based non-profit Holistic Life Foundation (HLF). Most often, you’ll find HLF founders Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez teaching yoga to African-American youth in a public school gym. Most of these students are exposed to significant trauma—fallout from growing up in poverty-stricken urban neighborhoods.
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Audacious Thinking: Summer 2015
Monday, July 13, 2015In this issue, Tara Huffman writes about reimagining jail in Baltimore city and Diana Morris writes about OSI-Baltimore’s renewed commitment to improving justice and equality after the death of Freddie Gray.
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Dismantling the workings of white supremacy
Thursday, July 09, 2015The poisonous notion of white supremacy is the root from which many of our experiences of American culture grows. It is what successive generations of black Americans have risked their lives to eradicate. It is the refuge from fair competition that has unjustly privileged white Americans for two and a half centuries.
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A Case for Student Voice
Wednesday, July 01, 2015When Baltimore City erupted on the afternoon of Freddie Gray’s funeral, many adults froze in front of their television screens. The imagery of high school students hurling bricks and bottles at police in riot gear was, to many, stunning, shocking, astonishing. I was not astonished. Instead, I was saddened, because I was watching evidence of something I’d long known: We’d failed our students.
