For the past 14 years, I have worked with men and women of all ages in Baltimore who live each and every day attempting mightily to overcome the struggles and obstacles related to their criminal records. They have vastly different life experiences, but most have two things in common: Almost all of them are poor, and even more of them are black.
In these ways, they mirror the countless black men, women, boys and girls whose daily and long-ignored experiences, stories, shouts, whispers and cries fill the 163 single-spaced pages of a scathing report by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. According to the recent DOJ report, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) has long violated the constitutional rights, dignity and humanity of Baltimore's black residents.
This report blasts on loud, anguishing and ugly display the simple fact that in Baltimore, policing is anchored in three pillars of law enforcement: race, place and space. The DOJ concluded that "racially disparate impact is present at every stage of BPD's enforcement actions, from the initial decision to stop individuals on Baltimore streets to searches, arrests and uses of force." It chronicled the daily, worn-out facts of life for Baltimore's poor black residents: that officers relentlessly stop, search, interrogate, disrespect, arrest and abuse them because they are someplace where the officers have decided, declared and dictated they do not belong — even on a public street, on the grounds of a public housing development or on their front steps. As the report makes clear, these residents have done nothing wrong or illegal. Rather, they have been arrested for being black, with officers using offenses such as loitering, trespassing and the ever-vague "rogue and vagabond" as pretext.
Race is such a boilerplate characteristic for arrest in Baltimore that a template form sent by a shift commander to be used when arresting individuals who "cannot give a 'valid reason'" for being near a public housing development preprinted the arrestee's race (black) and gender (male). Blackness, therefore, is assumed, specifically because this law enforcement strategy is built upon and enforces the premise that Baltimore's poor, black residents have no outside space to call their own. As a result, they are treated and policed as unwelcome visitors in their own communities. At the same time, they are under-protected. Sexual assaults, for example, are not taken seriously by the police, a gender bias in enforcement that disproportionately impacts and silences black women.
The DOJ concluded that Baltimore police supervisors "explicitly condoned trespassing arrests that do not meet constitutional standards." These practices are a living legacy of zero-tolerance policies that continue to hyper-criminalize individuals, families and communities in Baltimore. They leave residents ravaged by criminal records — which, in Maryland, are available on the Internet and frequently inaccurate — unable to secure employment, job-related licenses, public housing, private housing, bank loans and peace of mind.
Perhaps the most damning line in the DOJ report is that there is a "cultural resistance to accountability" within the Baltimore Police Department. Sit with that for a moment. For too long, there have been calls to reform Baltimore's police department and criminal justice system. Reform, though, will not get the job done. Reform does not peel away "cultural resistance." Culture is ingrained; it is a shared set of values that develops and sets in over time. As a result, the existing law enforcement culture must change. In its place must emerge a culture that recognizes, cherishes, protects and upholds the dignity, voice and humanity of everyone: alleged offenders, crime victims and the masses of people with whom officers interact. Baltimore and its residents deserve nothing less.
Michael Pinard is a professor and co-director of the Clinical Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. His email is mpinard@law.umaryland.edu; Twitter: @ProfMPinard.