• OSI’s Karen Webber makes the case for progressive discipline practices in Baltimore City Public Schools

    In the most recent issue of the Unified Family Court Connection, Karen E. Webber, director of OSI’s Education and Youth Development program discusses progressive discipline practices and the restorative approach to student behavior in Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) . Webber gives three main reasons – poverty, racism or racial threat, and overly punitive responses […]

  • OSI grantees release recommendations for consent decree

    Two OSI-Baltimore grantees, Baltimore Action Legal Team (BALT) and No Boundaries Coalition are taking an active role in the consent decree between Baltimore City Police (BPD) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) by releasing sets of recommendations. According to their press release, BALT’s recommendations, which were drafted by a group of volunteer lawyers, include an […]

  • OSI grantee promoting mindfulness in city schools featured in viral video

    OSI-Baltimore grantee  Holistic Life Foundation (HLF) has been getting quite a bit of attention recently, with articles featuring its afterschool program Holistic Me appearing on website like Upworthy, Vibe, GOOD Magazine, Woman’s Day, and Bustle. Started by HLF co-founders, brothers Ali and Atman Smith, with help from long-time friend Andrés Gonzalez, Holistic Me was developed […]

  • Solutions Summit registration now open

    New details announced for Solutions Summit: Registration now open for half-day forums and December 10 Summit BALTIMORE – Open Society Institute-Baltimore proudly announces the full schedule for Solutions Summit, an effort to bring together community leaders, elected officials, issue-area experts, on-the-ground activists and concerned residents in order to come up with practical solutions to some of […]

  • WYPR’s On the Watch: Can Cincinnati’s consent decree be a model for Baltimore?

    In the latest–and last–installment of WYPR’s series, On the Watch, “Cincinnati’s police reform story–a lesson for Baltimore?” reporter Mary Rose Madden looks at Cincinnati’s consent decree 15 years after it was implemented and asks if Baltimore might learn from that city’s process. In 2001, after a white office shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, […]

  • OSI grantees and fellows recognized in City Paper’s Best of Baltimore issue

    OSI Community Fellows Hannah Brancato (2015) and Jacqueline Robarge (2002) and OSI grantee Free State Justice were honored in City Paper’s Best of Baltimore issue. Brancato’s project FORCE Monument Quilt (Best Monument) aims to create a public monument of healing for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Brancato co-founded FORCE a few years ago, […]

  • OSI’s Tara Huffman talks to VICE Magazine about policing in Baltimore

    Tara Huffman, director of OSI-Baltimore’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program, is quoted in VICE magazine story, “How Cops Have Turned Baltimore into a Surveillance State,” which talks about community anger at revelations of the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) surveillance program days after the Department of Justice report on the BPD, and the relationship between police and communities […]

  • OSI Community Fellow’s latest project profiled in Baltimore Style magazine

    Check out the latest issue of Baltimore Style magazine to find a profile of 2015 OSI-Baltimore Community Fellow, Meryam Bouadjemi’s most recent endeavor, Close Up Baltimore, a Humans of New York-style photo essay project in which Baltimoreans get to tell their stories. Recently, in an effort to “democratize the platform” the project decided to bring […]

  • OSI’s Huffman talks to Al Jazeera about juvenile justice reform

    Over the Labor Day weekend, Tara Huffman, director of OSI’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice program, talked to the Al Jazeera TV network about the US practice of sentencing young people to life in prison without parole. The Supreme Court deemed such sentences unconstitutional in 2012, but more than 2,000 people remain in prison on sentences passed down […]

  • OSI’s Scott Nolen Recognized by Baltimore City Health Department

    Scott Nolen (left) and Carlos Hardy with their Baltimore City Health Equity Leadership Awards   On Tuesday night, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen presented Scott Nolen, director of OSI-Baltimore’s Drug Addiction Treatment program, with the Baltimore City Health Equity Leadership Award as part of the Health Department’s Healthy Baltimore 2020 Community Conversation at the Druid Hill Y. […]