open society institute of baltimore

Many in the Baltimore region and beyond see the scandal in City Hall as further evidence that our city is hopelessly — and maybe irretrievably — lost in chaos and dysfunction. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Just as each community is unique in Baltimore, policing strategies should be unique to each community. It is time for Baltimore to implement an improved version of micro-community policing plans.

Baltimore cannot continue to return to the tired mentality that sees police as warriors and efforts to build bridges with the community as distractions or impediments to safety. In truth, those bridges are what will keep us safe.

An investigation into Maryland’s only prison for women following the 2017 suicide of an inmate found the facility violated the constitutional rights of individuals with disabilities who are placed in segregation and did not take sufficient steps to “prevent future harm.”

By Lillian Reed

Dec 14, 2018

The upcoming gubernatorial race offers an opportunity to act on the city’s behalf, to insist that state policies and budget allocations over the next four years are not just city-friendly but shaped by an understanding of the critical role Baltimore has played and can play in the state.

City and state officials plan to announce Wednesday that they’ve secured funding for a stabilization center, a safe place where drug users can go so they are not taking up hospital beds, in Baltimore. The center, the first in Maryland, will be located at the old Hebrew Orphan Asylum on Rayner Avenue.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Mar 27, 2018

The Baltimore Health Department is working to design a system to monitor how many drug treatment slots are available in the city at any moment, a plan that officials say should make it easier to get help for addiction patients.

By Ian Duncan

Mar 7, 2018

Reacting to the conviction of two officers in the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force, many city leaders returned to the familiar “few bad apples” narrative to minimize the significance. Perhaps these leaders don't know the rest of the idiom: “One bad apple spoils the barrel."

Six months after a new judicial rule requiring court officers to seek alternatives to cash bail went into effect, the use of cash bail has declined significantly with no apparent negative consequences. But the work to end commercial bail is not yet complete.

A Baltimore nonprofit has outfitted a van to offer drug treatment to those leaving the city jail, a population considered at high risk of returning to substance use and overdose.

More moms are turning to baby beds made out of cardboard boxes as alternatives to cribs.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Dec 25, 2017

Notable Marylanders who died in 2017.

A panel tasked with reviewing civilian oversight of Baltimore’s police department as part of the city’s consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice has fallen behind schedule and one of its members has resigned, alleging mismanagement.

By Kevin Rector

Dec 15, 2017

The first time Mayor Catherine Pugh called Judge Andre M. Davis to offer him a job as Baltimore’s top lawyer, he turned her down.

By Luke Broadwater

Oct 4, 2017

Our communities, our government, and all residents must continue to defend DACA and the Dreamers in our communities and in the courts.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said Wednesday she is hiring federal Judge Andre M. Davis to become the city's top lawyer.

Historically, states of emergency have been used to order government agencies to implement emergency plans and alert citizens to change their normal behavior because of some imminent danger. In order to address Maryland's opioid emergency, unconventional but viable options such as safe consumption spaces must be considered — particularly when we have impressive data from 10 countries that currently operate nearly 100 safe consumptions spaces.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers have recommended that Baltimore open two facilities that provide people a safe place to do drugs and help prevent fatal overdoses. In a report published and commissioned by the non-profit Abell Foundation, the researchers suggest opening one facility on the east side of the city and the other on the west.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

Feb 23, 2017

The Baltimore Police Department will begin directing individuals detained for low-level drug and prostitution offenses in the western half of downtown to support services rather than to jail under a three-year pilot program developed in partnership with local nonprofit organizations.

By Kevin Rector

Feb 6, 2017

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has won funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies in New York to hire a small team dedicated to studying a single city problem and devising innovative solutions.

By Tim Prudente

Jan 17, 2017

At OSI's Solutions Summit, an agenda emerges

Nearly 700 people sought solutions to Baltimore's most difficult challenges in criminal justice, unemployment and mental health and addiction Saturday at an all-day summit sponsored by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.

By Lorraine Mirabella

Dec 10, 2016

A civic activism group will hold a daylong summit in Baltimore Saturday, where new Mayor Catherine E. Pugh and others are expected to discuss ways to approach some of the city's systemic problems.

On the Female Trouble podcast, OSI-Baltimore Director Diana Morris on how she got her start in philanthropy and Baltimore's future.

By Quinn Kelley

Sep 27, 2016

As opioid-related overdose deaths continue to rise across the state, some who treat addiction are criticizing a move by the state to cut off access to a drug treatment that is used by thousands of patients and considered effective.

Maryland's health department is precipitously removing an effective and widely used medication for the treatment of opioid addiction from the Medicaid list of preferred drugs as of July 1, meaning that it can only be prescribed after an arduous prior authorization process. This action will seriously restrict options for effective treatment of this devastating disease.

When the Baltimore school board revealed this month that it had secretly hired a new CEO, city and state officials were incensed that the panel had circumvented a process that would have given them and the public a say. But they have little recourse beyond airing their grievances.

Mayoral control won't improve city schools

There has been change in Baltimore since last year's uprising, although the gains are vulnerable, the change is slow, and there is much that still needs to be done.

Prince, the popular and virtuosic musician who died Thursday at age 57, was known for maintaining his Minneapolis roots. He also made an impression on Baltimore at a critical moment — as the city dealt with the death of Freddie Gray and the unrest that followed. He came at a time when other celebrities of his caliber did not.

By Wesley Case

Apr 21, 2016

A thousand quilt squares inscribed with messages of empowerment and stories of rape and sexual assault covered two shut-down blocks of North Avenue

City schools officials are "vigorously" investigating a cellphone video that shows a uniformed officer slapping a young man, schools spokeswoman Edie House Foster said.

With grant support from OSI-Baltimore, the Baltimore Police Department and Behavioral Health System Baltimore, in partnership with other key agencies and organizations, will bring the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program to Baltimore. Unlike other diversion programs, LEAD participants are not arrested, allowing substance users to begin recovery without any time in jail or the burden of a criminal record.

Gregory Carpenter, co-founder of 2AM Bakery and the recipient of a Community Fellows grant from the Open Society Institute-Baltimore, hopes to help ex-offenders bake their way into a profession.

Baltimore City Public School's new chief of school supports, Karl Perry, plans to "return to zero tolerance enforcement" of appropriate school behaviors — a climate plan that is both troubling and inconsistent with well-established best practices.

Open Society Institute-Baltimore issued $337,500 in grants from money the nonprofit raised after the city's unrest to programs working to advance social equity.

By Yvonne Wenger

Sep 24, 2015

There has been a fair amount of confusion around Baltimore and beyond over what to call "the events" of April. Riots? Unrest? Neither word seems to adequately capture what transpired this spring and continues today. We call it an uprising. A look at what happened shows why.

Proceeds from Prince's "Rally 4 Peace" last month at Royal Farms Arena -- the surprise concert announced in the wake of Freddie Gray¿s death and the unrest that followed -- will be donated to the NAACP's Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) and the city's YouthWorks and OneBaltimore programs, according to a press release first obtained by the Baltimore Sun on Monday afternoon.

By Wesley Case

Jun 1, 2015

The live stream of Prince's Rally 4 Peace concert at Royal Farms Arena earlier this month raised $17,323 for the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.

By Wesley Case

May 28, 2015

Prince's concert followed a tumultuous time in Baltimore in the weeks since 25-year-old Freddie Gray died after sustaining a spinal cord injury in police custody. Prince wanted to play as "catalyst for pause and reflection following the outpouring of violence that has gripped Baltimore and areas throughout the U.S.," according to his announcement.

The unrest caused by the death of Freddie Gray likely retraumatized people already struggling with poverty, violence and other social ills.

By Andrea K. McDaniels

May 10, 2015

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge ruled that Gov. Larry Hogan did not violate the Maryland constitution when he signed an executive order allowing people arrested during the riots to be held longer than 24 hours before seeing a court commissioner.