{"id":1214,"date":"2022-11-11T19:54:52","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T19:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2024-09-10T20:47:47","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T20:47:47","slug":"righting-the-scales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/righting-the-scales\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By Hope Keller<\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In 2017, on the day the <\/span>consent decree<\/span> between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Baltimore and its police department was filed in court, then-U.S. Attorney General <\/span>Loretta Lynch spoke at the University of Baltimore School of Law.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

She began by noting that she took her oath of office on the day Baltimore erupted over Freddie Gray\u2019s death in police custody.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIt was clear that here in Baltimore \u2013 as in so many American cities \u2013 deep-seated feelings of mistrust and hostility had gone unaddressed for too long,\u201d Lynch said on Jan. 12, 2017. \u201cAnd it was clear that in order to repair the social fabric, those issues had to be dealt with honestly, comprehensively and immediately.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Against this backdrop, the UBalt School of Law this year launched the Center for Criminal Justice Reform<\/a> (CCJR). Created with a $3 million gift from alumnus <\/span>Samuel G. Rose, LL.B. \u201962<\/span><\/b>, the center supports community-driven efforts to improve public safety and address the harm and inequity caused by the criminal legal system. (A companion Criminal Defense and Advocacy Clinic<\/a>, which begins in Spring 2023, was also created thanks to Rose\u2019s bequest.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Heather Warnken<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Heather Warnken<\/a>, executive director of the center, said it is engaging in a range of programming meant to address the mass incarceration crisis, and to reimagine public safety across the country. Part of this work means rethinking the definition of “crime victim” to build a more inclusive infrastructure of care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cHistorically, the idea of \u2018crime victim\u2019 [conjures] certain images and does not include the experience of Black men and youth who, by exponents, experience the most homicide and nonfatal gun violence in this country, including in Baltimore,\u201d Warnken says, “yet are more likely to be criminalized than supported in the aftermath of that violence.”<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Prof. David Jaros<\/a>, the center\u2019s faculty director, said he and Warnken sought to break down the \u201cfalse dichotomy\u201d between crime victims and the defendants who disproportionately wind up enmeshed in the criminal legal system.<\/span><\/p>

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Prof. David Jaros<\/figcaption><\/figure>

\u201cIn fact, these are all the same people,\u201d Jaros says. \u201cOur system tends to divide [people] up into communities worthy of protection and respect for their rights and communities that don\u2019t get the resources or protection of the legal system.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Moreover, trauma begets more trauma, notes Warnken. <\/span>\u201cFor people who experience violence and harm in their communities, especially in the absence of meaningful, humane, dignified responses that support them — the likelihood that they will be a victim or they will harm others is greater,\u201d Warnken says.<\/span> “Being serious about public safety means embracing what we know actually works in interrupting cycles of harm — and the systemic racism that perpetuates it.”<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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‘The Web of disparities’<\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Warnken and Jaros say the CCJR will regularly convene community and government stakeholders to identify challenges and recommend solutions to the deeply entrenched inequities in the national and local criminal legal systems. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Before coming to the law school, Warnken spent five years as a visiting fellow at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she was co-affiliated with the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Office for Victims of Crime in the first-ever position dedicated to bridging the gap between research, policy and practice to improve the response to individuals and communities impacted by crime victimization.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In that role, Warnken led an assessment of how people impacted by violence are treated in Baltimore. The report authored by her and her team — which examined the experiences of underserved survivors, focused on Black men and youth affected by gun violence — was released by the <\/span>City of Baltimore<\/span><\/a> in August, along with a formal response.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The report made clear that to improve public safety in Baltimore, the legacy of racism in policing must be confronted head-on.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The historical role that law enforcement played in maintaining slavery through slave patrols came up in multiple interviews, according to the report.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIt is obvious to many that Black and brown bodies have been historically viewed as a threat by law enforcement and, in society more broadly, less worthy of compassion in the wake of harm if worthy at all,\u201d the report said in its first chapter. \u201cThese persistent attitudes undergird the web of disparities found throughout public life, including a sense of continued impunity for disparate or<\/span> dehumanizing <\/span>treatment from BPD.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

At a center event in February, former DOJ Inspector General Michael Bromwich, who led a two-year investigation into the Baltimore Police Department\u2019s disgraced Gun Trace Task Force, presented <\/span>his team\u2019s findings<\/span><\/a>. The <\/span>video of the event<\/span><\/a> had been viewed more than 11,000 times as of late October, no doubt thanks to \u201cWe Own This City,\u201d the HBO series about the GTTF adapted from Baltimore crime reporter Justin Fenton\u2019s book of the same name.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

For years, members of the elite police unit robbed Baltimore residents and planted guns and drugs. They were arrested in 2017 and ultimately convicted on charges of racketeering, robbery, extortion and overtime fraud.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Saying the scandal was emblematic of deeper, systemic challenges in policing, Warnken says the CCJR will look into the role of judges and other key actors in responding to police misconduct. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019re really interested in the role of judges, who make decisions every day in their courtrooms — interpreting evidence and [determining] the truthfulness and reliability of officers — reliability that is often given great weight,\u201d Warnken says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The center is also involved in projects examining equity in public safety grantmaking, including how federal criminal justice grants are spent, Warnken adds. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cState and local governments get a tremendous amount of money from the Department of Justice and other federal agencies,\u201d says Warnken. \u201cAre they relying on police and prosecution, or are they meaningfully investing in community-based programs and alternatives to incarceration? There\u2019s so much discretion at the state and local levels, but not enough support or transparency on how those dollars get spent.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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Samuel G Rose<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Benefactor <\/span>Samuel Rose<\/span><\/b> said in a University of Baltimore School of Law news release that the center would benefit reform efforts locally and nationally.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s both exciting and gratifying to support efforts to improve the lives of individuals — the wrongly accused and the excessively punished — while working more broadly to influence local and national policy around violence prevention, mass incarceration, juvenile justice and more,\u201d he said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Dean Ronald Weich said the Center for Criminal Justice Reform was a logical outgrowth of the law school\u2019s longstanding involvement in criminal justice matters.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cSome of the best defense lawyers are UB graduates, half of the state\u2019s attorneys in Maryland are UB graduates,\u201d Weich said. \u201cThis is a more comprehensive way of addressing issues related to criminal justice, from policing to sentencing to victims\u2019 rights.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

And, he said, the law school is a perfect place for such a center.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIf you want to work on improving criminal justice, the University of Baltimore is the place to do it,\u201d Weich says. “We are proud to <\/span>support community-driven reform efforts in Baltimore and beyond.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Hope Keller<\/strong> is a writer based in Connecticut.
<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Hope Keller In 2017, on the day the consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Baltimore and its police department was filed in court, then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke at the University of Baltimore School of Law.\u00a0 She began by noting that she took her oath of office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3596,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":132,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2645,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/2645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}