Tara Huffman, director of Open Society Institute’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice program, was quoted in the Baltimore Sun today, talking about the case of Deniro Bellamy, a mentally disabled man who overdosed on morphine and fentanyl in Baltimore City jail and died while being held for a traffic violation.
Huffman emphasized the need for pretrial reform so people with disabilities, addiction, and other health issues are not held by the criminal justice system in the first place. “It should be the criminal justice system’s response to divert people away from it as quickly as possible, because it’s simply not equipped to deal with a Mr. Bellamy,” she said.
