Hey, Baltimore: Bigger Jails Aren't the Answer

The state of Maryland is planning to spend nearly $300 million to build two new jails in Baltimore: one for kids being tried as adults and one for women. The new jails are based on outdated stats that incorrectly projected growing populations. Crime is now dropping in Baltimore -- violent offenses are down 40 percent since 2000 -- and officials need to put a hold on their costly new cages before they end up with mammoth jails they don't need.

A new report from the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) correctly argues that building  a new women's jail would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. When budget dollars go to building, staffing and maintaining a sprawling jail, the chance to spend those dollars on community correction -- or drug treatment, or family support or job training -- are lost. The problems run even deeper at the proposed youth facility. Not only would dollars committed to the new jail be diverted from badly needed education and rehabilitation programs, but the jail would be only for young people charged as adults. When we're charging so many kids in adult court that we need a separate facility for them, we're doing something wrong.

More than 500 people have already joined the Campaign for Youth Justice in urging Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley to scale back plans for the proposed youth jail in the city. Let's add the women's prison to that argument. Email O'Malley and other Maryland lawmakers here.

Change.org's Elizabeth Renter has covered the proposed youth jail and the grassroots response here. We'll continue to follow developments on the youth jail and keep you in the loop.

For the planned women's facility, the new JPI report unearths some extremely troubling statistics.There are currently about 400 women in Baltimore's jail; the proposed new facility would expand capacity to 825 beds, based on 2007 projections that showed arrest and incarceration rates continuing to skyrocket. Those number are simply wrong. Crime in Baltimore has dropped 40 percent  in the last decade, with arrests dropping 16 percent since 2006. The current facility is reportedly crumbling, and I won't advocate leaving prisoners in squalor. But the state could renovate the jail or build a much smaller new facility at a fraction of the cost.  The slow response of politicians to new crime and imprisonment trends has already left state like Virginia stuck with empty, expensive prisons. Maryland should avoid making the same mistake.

Nine out of ten women in Baltimore's jail haven't been convicted of anything -- they're just waiting for a trial. And 77 percent are charged with non-violent crimes. Most of these women shouldn't be behind bars, they should be under community supervision until their court dates (community supervision costs taxpayers $2 per day; holding them in jail costs $100).

We've written here at Change.org about one reason so many people aren't freed before trial: they can't afford small bail amounts and the bail bond industry works hard to subvert alternatives to incarceration and community release programs. Building a big new jail is only playing perfectly into the bail bondsmen's hands.

All Maryland taxpayers will be on the hook for these new jails, and they should speak up before the state wastes money in their name. Baltimore can do better, both for kids and for women, and it's up to us to remind the state and the city to step outside the comfort of prison-building and do what's right for the community.

Join the Justice Police Institute in urging Maryland lawmakers to consider alternatives to building a massive new jail that the state doesn't need.

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Photo Credit: elNico