628 Gastins Lane
Baltimore, MD 21217
January 27, 2015
Delegate Harry J. Andrews
Maryland House of Delegates
House Office Building, Room 316
6 Bladen Street
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
Re: House Bill 136, Maryland Safer Communities Reinvestment Fund
Dear Delegate Andrews:
Congratulations on your recent reelection to represent District 35 in the Maryland House of Delegates! I appreciate your continued public service. My family and I have lived in this district for over twelve years and are active with a number of local civic organizations. I am writing to you today as a member of the Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR), a statewide organization created in 2013 to explore alternative solutions to unnecessary incarceration and build safe and strong communities, to urge your support for House Bill 136, ‘Maryland Safer Communities Reinvestment Fund’. HB 136 is a critical piece of MAJR’s 2015 legislative agenda that seeks to reform incarceration policies and practices in Maryland.
HB 136 allows for the implementation of what’s commonly known as the ‘Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JPI)’, a bipartisan federal policy that begun under President George W. Bush and has continued under the Obama administration, and encourages states to implement evidence-based screening practices to identify ‘low-risk’ offenders who, if released from incarceration, would not be a threat to public safety as a way to reduce prison populations and costs. As a result of the population and cost reductions, funds are then reallocated to support alternative interventions for ‘high-risk’ offenders to discourage recidivist behavior. Seventeen states, including Delaware, Ohio and Pennsylvania, have adopted JPI strategies and are showing great success in reducing state crime and taxpayer costs.
There are a number of reasons to support HB 136 as a means of reducing prison populations and costs in Maryland:
- Our current state incarceration system is not working: Maryland’s incarceration rate tripled between |980 and 2001, including a 52 percent increase for nonviolent offenders.
- Our current system is extremely costly: Maryland has over 21,000 individuals in our state prisons at a cost of about $38,000 annually per inmate, The state’s crime rate has not declined as a result of the massive increase in our prison population and taxpayer costs, and public safety has not significantly improved.
- Recidivism rates are stubbornly high: Between 41% to 51% of our state’s inmates commit new crimes that return them to prison within three years of release — a much higher rate than in Virginia and many other states — and many of them are low-risk, nonviolent offenders.
I have enclosed for your information an executive summary that briefly describes MAJR’s goals for the 2015 legislative session, including information on HB 136 and additional legislative proposals that could benefit from HB 136. You can also find more information on our website at www.ma4r.org. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding HB 136 or other issues pertaining to reducing Maryland’s prison population. I appreciate your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Mary I. Smith
