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Stop Maryland from Building a New Women's Jail in Baltimore
  1. Signatures
    88 out of 100
    Petitioning
    1. The Governor of MD (+ 3 others)
      Petitioning
      close
      • The Governor of MD
      • The MD State Senate
      • The MD State House
      • Secretary, Maryland Division of Public Safety and Correctional Services (Mr. Gary Maynard)
  2. Created By
    Tracy Velazquez
    Mount Rainier, MD
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates
How We Won

Jan 21, 2011

Violent crime in Baltimore has dropped 10 percent since 2006, yet until recently, Maryland state officials were proposing to more than double the city's capacity to incarcerate women -- the vast majority of whom are behind bars for nonviolent offenses. But thanks to activists across the state and dozens of Change.org members, Gov. Martin O'Malley dropped plans to fund the new jail in his 2012 budget proposal.

“If you build it, they will come.”

While this quote originally concerned a baseball field, it also applies to corrections: more jails and prisons mean more people behind bars. Once the costs are sunk in a new facility, it’s that much easier to justify policies that incarcerate more people, from policing strategies, to pretrial decisions, to sentencing options.

Maryland is planning to build a new pretrial jail facility for women arrested in Baltimore city that would hold more than twice as many women as are currently detained.  Baltimore already has one of the highest percentages of people locked up in jail as any large city in the country. It’s time to say NO to MORE JAIL BEDS.

The new facility was based on projected increases in crime, arrests and the number of women in jail. According to a recent report by the Justice Policy Institute, these projections were wrong. Since 2006, the city’s violent crime rate, number of arrests and women in jail all fell by more than 10 percent  . As of January 2010, about 400 women were detained in the jail, compared to the projected 810. Building a bigger jail will only lead to more women behind bars.

Over 75 percent of women in the Baltimore jail were arrested for nonviolent offenses like prostitution, violations of probation or drug offenses; yet, many will spend months, even years, awaiting trial behind bars because they cannot post even small bail amounts. Instead of spending $181 million to build a new jail, state leaders should work with Baltimore agencies and organizations to reduce court delays and unnecessary arrests and improve treatment and services for women not only during and after jail, but beforehand so women can avoid coming in contact with the justice system in the first place. The time for real solutions is now. Don’t build a new jail, fix a broken system.

Recent Signatures

Baltimore doesn't need another jail

Greetings.

As someone concerned about finding effective, just and cost-conscious solutions to criminal justice issues, I strongly urge you to halt plans to build a new women’s detention center in Baltimore.

Plans to build the new facility were based on projections in 2007 predicting increasing crime rates and higher levels of arrests and incarceration for women in the city of Baltimore. Those projections have proven false. According to a new report by the Justice Policy Institute, since 2006, the violent crime rate fell 11 percent; the number of arrests fell 16 percent; from 2005 to 2009, the number of women in the Women’s Detention Center fell 15 percent. As of January 2010, about 400 women were detained in the jail, not the predicted 810.

Building an 800-bed facility (twice the size of the current population of women jailed in Baltimore) at a cost of $181 million to Maryland taxpayers is a serious misallocation of resources, especially during these trying economic times.

Baltimore can, and should, lock up fewer women in its jail. The system that exists doesn’t address core social problems, doesn’t strengthen communities, unnecessarily separates families, and certainly doesn’t promote public safety. Instead of building a new jail, let’s create a system that builds up and supports women inside and outside the facility, and focus on solutions that will make lasting improvements in Baltimore. Don’t build a new jail, fix a broken system.

[Your name]

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