BOWIE, Md. (7News) — The Maryland Attorney General is taking action to stop a crisis facing people of color in Maryland: The mass incarceration of Black men and women.
The population of Maryland’s jails and prisons is 71% African American, according to state statistics.
The general population of the state is 30% African American.
Attorney General Anthony Brown says that disparity is the definition of mass incarceration.
“The over-incarceration, the mass incarceration of Black men and women in Maryland is a crisis. It is something that we all know, no matter the color of our skin,” Brown said.
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“The vast majority of the faces of the people who are taken from our communities and put behind bars are African American men and women in Maryland. This is a crisis,” Brown said.
Brown spoke Wednesday at Bowie State University, where he announced a new partnership with Maryland’s Chief Public Defender Natasha Dartigue to tackle the issue.
The Attorney General and Public Defender Dartigue, normally adversaries, are now united in purpose.
“We come together to eliminate the causes of mass incarceration,” said Dartigue.
The two formed the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative, bringing together stakeholders in the justice system to figure out how to achieve their goal in a moment they called historic.
“Our criminal system is permeated with racial bias and a discriminatory inertia which renders it unjust for far too many, and that is what the public defenders and I believe,” said Brown.
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The effort comes even as gun violence and carjackings are spiking in many areas and recent polling suggests a majority of voters and many prosecutors favor a tougher approach, especially to juvenile crime.
We asked the Attorney General about that, and he insisted jail has never been the answer.
“Those who commit crimes of violence we’re gonna hold accountable and you can’t investigate and prosecute your way to safer neighborhoods because it certainly isn’t working in Maryland,” said Brown.
This is just the first meeting of this group. The Attorney General stressed he doesn’t know what the end result of all this will be, but in all likelihood, they’ll be recommending legislation and changes in state budgeting.