Archive

Hundreds of parents, students, and teachers from Baltimore City will head to Lawyer’s Mall in Annapolis tonight at 6:00 to urge Governor Larry Hogan, state legislators, and Mayor Catherine Pugh to address the $130 million budget shortfall for Baltimore City Public Schools–which amount to 10% of the system’s $1.3 billion budget. City Schools CEO Sonja […]

Friday night, MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” talked about communities around the country that are stepping up to stand with their immigrant neighbors to defend against raids and deportations, including those taking the “Here to Stay” pledge. In particular, she cited “Bystander Training” held on Friday night in Baltimore, organized by OSI grantee CASA and OSI Community […]

Representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including Timothy Mygatt, deputy chief of the Special Litigation Section, came to OSI-Baltimore’s office yesterday to talk to local advocates and community groups about the Consent Decree, signed by the DOJ, the City of Baltimore, and the Baltimore Police Department in January. (Read OSI-Baltimore’s statement about the Consent […]

A new report by Common Cause finds that the bail bonds industry has donated almost $300,000 to Maryland state officials since 2011 – $87,000 in 2016 alone – ranking third behind only California and Florida. Read the full report, “Pay to Play,” here. Read the Washington Post story on the report here. Maryland’s General Assembly is under […]

In an op-ed in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun, “‘Solutions Summit’ action plan represents will of Baltimore residents,” the co-chairs of OSI’s Solutions Summit encouraged the city’s leaders and residents to work together to advance the 16-point action plan that emerged from the Summit. While this action plan doesn’t touch on all of the city’s issues and […]

This morning, Tara Huffman, director of OSI-Baltimore’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice program, joined WYPR’s “On the Record” with Sheilah Kast to talk about the consent decree between the city and the Department of Justice announced yesterday. Listen to the segment here. Read OSI-Baltimore’s statement about the consent decree here.

Five months after the Department of Justice released a report stating that “there is reasonable cause to believe that [Baltimore Police Department] engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law,” the city and the Department of Justice this morning announced a legally binding consent decree requiring reforms of […]

In its story, “Eyes Over Baltimore: How Police Use Military Technology to Secretly Track You,” Rolling Stone details the controversy over the Baltimore Police Department’s (BPD) secret surveillance program. The story cites the efforts of the Campaign for Justice, Safety & Jobs, an OSI-Baltimore grantee, to get the City Council to address the surveillance program and […]

Today, as part of its ongoing series of profiles of OSI-Baltimore’s 2016 cohort of Community Fellows, WYPR’s “On the Record,” hosted by Sheilah Kast, profiled Gianna Rodriguez, Deborah Ramsey, and JC Faulk (click names to hear each profile). As pat of her Fellowship, Gianna Rodriguez will expand on her work with Baltimore Youth Arts to establish […]