Kane on "Banning the Box"

Discrimination against applicants because of a felony conviction isn't like discrimination based on race. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous quote is about his wanting his children to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

If a felony conviction - and answering questions honestly about that conviction - isn't about the content of your character, I'd like to know what the heck is.

Sometimes, Gregory Kane makes sense.

Martial Law on Demand Fails in Baltimore City

Good news. This proposal has been beaten for now, and the controversy may be a preview of the difficulty Mike Nutter may face in Philly when he tries to implement it. Americans should never have to justify walking on the sidewalk in public to the police.

Ending the Violence

Baltimore Examiner:

Protesters call for an end to violence

BALTIMORE - Marching through the McCulloh Homes housing project in East Baltimore on Saturday, nearly 100 protesters took to the streets to call attention to another deadly month in one of the country’s deadliest cities.

Citing 24 murders in 24 days, Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, president of the Baltimore chapter of the NAACP, who organized the Let’s Stop the Killings and End The Violence Rally, said he was fed up with the violence.

“We are here to end the apathy,” he said “We are here to recognize the continuing violence, and we’ll keep to expressing our outrage until things change,” he said.

How many of these rallies have taken place over the years? I am sure the numbers reach into the hundreds. What have they accomplished? Not too much it seems.

Yes, these rallies serve a purpose. They bring the community together and they restore a much needed feeling of unity among those in the city who want to see an end to the violence. Community leaders say some nice things and some angry things:

The protesters, who marched to the plaza near McCulloh Homes where a murder had occurred just days before, were joined by Israel Cason, the founder of I Can’t, We Can drug rehabilitation center in Park Heights, and state Del. Jill Carter.

Cason, who was recently notified the council he intends to seek the 6th District council seat vacated by new City Council President Stephanie Rawlings Blake, said the city needed a spiritual change.

“This is about our souls,” he said. “The root of the problem is us, we need to do something about our own condition” he said.

Carter, the only mayoral candidate to attend the rally, said the absence of other public officials was telling.

“The lives of African-Americans are simply not valued,” she said. “We need to build the morale of the people by standing with them.”

Delegate Carter, though it may seem like the "smart" thing to do, this is not the time to be scoring political points. Even though Baltimore's crime problems are the things of Mayoral candidate's dreams, even if every mayoral candidate from the past 25 years would have attended the protest this past Saturday it would have done nothing to end the violence in the city.

Others at the rally had opinions on how to end the violence:

Michael Makel, a resident of McCulloh Homes, said that although he is encouraged people turned out to join in the protest, the key to stopping violence was in the classroom.

“Everything starts with proper education,” he said. “Teenagers need to know there is opportunity out there, a real alternative. Then you’ll see change.”

Indeed, improving opportunities for those in violent areas is an important step in ending the violence. However, while we increase the opportunities for our "at risk" youth, we also need to take an active role in decreasing the opportunities for these youth to engage in behavior that leads to violence. This means ending our youth's access to a job in the illegal drug trade and all the criminal activities that come with such involvement. Our current policing and drug enforcement strategy has only lead to an increase in the scope, competitiveness and profitability of the illegal drug trade.

If we are serious about ending violence and saving our young people from becoming involved in violence we must attack the source of the criminal activity that breeds this violence. This is not the simple availability of illegal drugs, it is specifically the illegal market and the way we deal with this market that must change. To do this we must create a legal market for drugs that is appealing to the drug consumer. Once the consumer sees that they can get their fix in a safe, cheap, and legal way, the open air drug markets will fade almost immediately.

Suddenly, "the game" isn't very attractive anymore. The money will be gone, and with it, the allure of street life. Selling on the corner will no longer be a perceived "short path to money, success, and respect" that is has become for many misguided youth in our country.

Of course the violence will not end completely. People will still search for the "short path" the comes with robbery, theft, and murder for hire. However, the numbers will be greatly reduced. Not to mention, the street dealing values will pass away as well, with time. It is in these values, bred in desperation and without respect for the law, where we find this fetishization of senseless violence. Here we find the distortions of "respect" and "justice". Here we find the violent societal expression of our vicious, winner take all capitalism.

While Mr. Makel is correct, that teenagers do need a "real alternative", he never mentions what they need an alternative to. It is unspoken, but he is talking about cycle of violence and criminal activity of which the illegal drug trade is the backbone. No matter what alternative we present to our youth, it will continue be ignored by those who are drawn to the lucrative and forever pervasive illegal drug trade.

UPDATE: DChase at Bmorenews criticizes the violent mentality that has been created by the illegal drug trade.

Some New Stories Speak for Themselves.

In Baltimore, not even police officers are safe from random crime.

If only we had more officers on the street, or something. Whatever.

Community Policing: Its a Start

Baltimore City is shifting to a new policing strategy, one more based on community policing and targeting repeat offenders. This move is a slight departure from the O'Malley "zero tolerance" strategy that focused on quality of life arrests, a strategy that I believe is horribly flawed.

The Sun summarizes the new approach:

Some aspects of the plan, such as having federal prosecutors take over serious gun cases, have been a part of both O'Malley's crime-fighting strategies and new ones that have begun to emerge.

But other initiatives - such as evolving anti-gang and gun violence reduction strategies - represent a change in direction for the Police Department. It is an ambitious undertaking that will require unprecedented cooperation between all levels of the criminal justice system to target violent offenders, a small number of whom are believed to be responsible for most serious crime.

The idea is that once a person is identified, police, prosecutors, parole and probation officers and social service workers bring the full weight of their offices to pressure offenders into giving up their criminal lifestyle.

Now, I have no clue how this new strategy will work out, but at least it shows that the city's not-so-new leaders are willing to take a chance on some new ideas.

There still appears to be no change in the drug arrest policy, and I find the idea of "scaring" a hardened criminal straight completely ridiculous. If they city wants to do interventions, they should head to the cities middle schools and improve the abysmal conditions at many of them. They should intervene before a person has a chance to get too large a taste of the criminal lifestyle.

Still, I must applaud incoming Mayor Sheila Dixon and States Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy for at least trying to move away from the zero-tolerance policing strategies that have caused the wrongful and negligent arrests of so many of our innocent citizens.

Hey, its a start.

NAACP Leaving Baltimore

Who can really blame them? To be honest, they are only moving their headquarters to Washington DC, but when you look at recent news, Baltimore and Maryland certainly seem hostile to the goals the NAACP wishes to achieve.

Though Maryland elected Democrats statewide, they did so while subtly snubbing the NAACP and the Black community. Ben Cardin famously skipped the NAACP debate vs Mike Steele (please see UPDATE at the bottom of the post). All reasons aside, Kweisi Mfume's Senate run was largely ignored by the Democratic Machine.

Then today, first I see that Governor-elect O'Malley, despite his personal opposition to the death penalty, as well as his knowledge of the University of Maryland Study which indicts the MD death penalty as racist, will still continue to carry out the death penalty in Maryland as long as the courts approve of lethal injection.

That opinion is completely unacceptable. No Democrat should be able to read the Maryland Study and conclude that the death penalty should be allowed to continue in Maryland. I could care less what the court thinks about lethal injection. The death penalty is madness, no matter the method. Parris Glendenning, for all his faults, understood this clearly when he instituted the moratorium. O'Malley must restore this moratorium on the death penalty.

Governor-Elect O'Malley, perhaps Sheila Dixon as well, need to do something to restore some sense of trust in our justice system, particularly in Baltimore City.

The NAACP, perhaps in their final Baltimore hurrah, have alleged that the Baltimore City police have been engaging in illegal arrests. This is what you get when you adopt the draconian policing policies that made Rudy Guliani famous.

Baltimore lawyers said in court documents that that arrests for "quality of life" crimes are not illegal; that City State's Attorney decision not to prosecute some crimes does not mean those arrests were unlawful; and that using a performance evaluation system for police officers based on the number of arrests is not unlawful.

Does anyone else really believe that every loitering and littering arrest was justified? How about every strip search? I think the NAACP most likely has a solid case. When people are judged by quantity not quality, quality obviously suffers. The evaluation system is one of the most troubling things in the suit. Police are being encouraged to make as many arrests as possible, and innocent people are being unreasonable arrested as a result.

I think it will be important to ask who was pushing these officers to get the high numbers. At what level did the order come from? I have a feeling our Governor-elect getting out of Baltimore just in time. Lets see if this case pulls him back into the quagmire of Baltimore crime and punishment.

So I cannot say I am surprised that the NAACP has begun finalizing plans to move to Washington DC in 2007. I am amazed they haven't left already. And yet:

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond has said the organization wanted to move its headquarters to be closer to Congress, government agencies and the many news media outlets in Washington. He said the NAACP loved everything about Baltimore, except its location.

Chairman Bond, speaking diplomatically, to say the least.

UPDATE: Stephanie Dray has correctly pointed out that it was really Mike Steele who intentionally skipped the statewide NAACP debate, and Ben Cardin who only skipped a smaller NAACP sponsored debate due to scheduling conflicts. Senator-elect Cardin had planned on debating Steele in the statewide debate, which Mr. Steele intentionally bowed out of. Thanks Steph. Sorry for the error.

Furthermore, I have no clue why the NAACP has decided to leave Baltimore. I was only making the point that they have every reason to. Though I respect his opinion, I do not agree with The League that the NAACP is abandoning the city. I do agree that Baltimore is losing a part of what made it special.

Baltimore Sun jumps on the bandwagon

The Sun has picked up the witness murder story I blogged about yesterday, as well as the "Stupid witnesses get what they deserve" meme, and shame on them for it.

Cooperating with authorities - though vital to the criminal justice system - can be dangerous.

.....

But many Baltimore witnesses aren't accepting help. Some, like the Dawsons, refuse to leave their dangerous neighborhoods. Still more witnesses, like Dowery, participate only halfway, agreeing to relocate but returning to their old haunts, witness coordinators say.

Halfway? Are you kidding me? From the same story:

After watching his friend rob drug dealers in his East Baltimore neighborhood and then overhearing the dealers' bosses discuss killing the robber, Dowery agreed to become a witness in a city murder case.

Dowery was shot at least six times outside his home in October 2005 in what police believe was an attempt to silence him, but he testified anyway. When the case became federal this year, he agreed to help with that, too.

Ah yes, risking your life multiple times in the interest of justice is "going halfway" for the Sun. What more could Mr. Dowery have done short of raising the murdered men from the dead?

Rep. Cummings even joins the party:

"You can give someone all the witness protection you want, but if someone wants to go back to their neighborhood, what can you do?" said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat who has proposed legislation to beef up local witness protection programs.

...

Cummings introduced legislation that would help give states a version of witness protection more like the federal program. The legislation has languished for almost two years in a House subcommittee, but with the Democrats about to assume power in Washington, Cummings said he plans to reintroduce it in January.

State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy has said she supports Cummings' bill. She said she wants witness protection to be handled statewide and run by the Maryland State Police, instead of individual state's attorney's offices. The goal, she said, would be to give Baltimore witnesses the same sense of security that federal witnesses have.

What is disturbing is what Rep. Cummings acknowledges without even saying or meaning to. He acknowledges that the police have NO CONTROL over the violence in the city. Its assumed that Mr. Dowery's returning to his neighborhood might as well have been a suicide attempt. As if it is Mr. Dowery's fault that he was murdered, not that of the spineless criminals that shot a father of nine. Those criminals are an afterthought. They most likely won't be caught, and no one seems to care.

All the state cares about is keeping their witnesses alive long enough to testify, and if those witnesses DARE TO GET MURDERED, they probably had it coming.

Witness Slaying Underscores... Something

Another witness has been murdered in Baltimore. Just try to guess who he was witnessing against.

Dowery's involvement with the justice system began Oct. 13, 2004, as he stood in his doorway. His friend James Wise told him about a plan to rob drug dealers. Dowery tried to talk Wise and Wise's younger companion out of it, but he watched as they went through with the plan.

Then Dowery said he saw the drug dealers' bosses hop into a car and chase after the robbers. He read in the newspaper that Wise had been killed. He decided to tell police what he knew and that he would testify.

Mr. Dowery, a father of 9 had come into the city to be with his relatives for thanksgiving. He was shot after dinner at a corner bar. Of course, the police blame him for having the audacity to visit his family.

Dowery was warned by local and federal authorities not to go back to his old neighborhood, but a major problem in protecting witnesses is keeping them from returning to their homes.

"We cannot take their safety more seriously than they take their own safety," said Gloria Luckett, a victim-witness assistance coordinator for the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office.

This is insanity.

The Examiner has the gall to say in their headline that this slaying "underscores Baltimore's problem with witness intimidation." I disagree. It underscores Baltimore's problem with drugs being illegal.

Now, I must admit, this post is coming one day after watching a rather moving episode of HBO's The Wire. If you are reading this and are not familiar with the show, you are doing yourself a great disservice. If you live in Baltimore, and have the desire to see this city live and breath again, you must watch this show.

Yeah, the show is fiction, but the streets they shoot it on are real. The witness slayings, the demonization of witnesses within sections of the Black community are real. The bodies (269 last year, about the same this year) and the ruined lives are definitely real. The culture that has been created by the criminalization of drugs is real and pervasive.

But what can Baltimore do (what can any city really do)? Drugs aren't going anywhere. They are an extremely profitable business, just ask Anheuser-Busch or R.J. Reynolds. I seriously doubt that I will live to see any comprehensive drug policy reform in the country, which is a terrible shame. Baltimore will not heal until drugs are legalized. Neither will Detroit or St. Louis or any town afflicted by the ills of the illegal drug trade. I really wish that there were other options, but I just can't think of any.

It has taken a few years for much of the public to realize the War in Iraq is a losing battle. That our policies are doing more harm than good. That our policies are getting people killed in huge numbers. I wonder when Americans will begin to examine our own war at home and what the policies of that war are doing to Americans every day?