Greetings!
Did you hear that the Governor of the state of Maryland, Martin O'Malley, wants to spend over $100 million on black children? On what, you ask. Could it be that he is following in the footsteps of Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg who announced plans to donate $100 million to help improve schools in Newark, New Jersey? Could it be to improve affordable housing in a city where the Housing Authority has decreased housing opportunities for the poor? Could it be to address the Deficient School Facilities in Baltimore City that the ACLU estimates at $2.8 billion? Could it be to fund African-American nonprofits who labor with little to no funding to address many of the pressing problems facing citizens of Baltimore City?
No.
Governor Martin O'Malley wants to spend over $100 million to construct a jail for our youth. That's right a jail. While our state is facing a financial crisis the Governor wants to spend over $100 million on a 230 bed jail for children with an estimated operation budget of $8 million a year. Couldn't this money be put to better use? Why not give $100 million to the Associated Black Charities or The Collective Banking Group and allow them to redistribute funds and provide technical assistance to build capacity and strengthen faith-based and community-based organizations who are working in the areas of mentoring, afterschool programs, living wage jobs, affordable housing or juvenile justice?
But this shouldn't be surprising. When Governor O'Malley was mayor of Baltimore City from 1999-2007 there were over 700,000 illegal arrests. A recent study conducted by the Justice Policy Institute entitled "Baltimore Behind Bars" shows Baltimore leads the nation in the percentage of its population in jail with African-Americans being overrepresented.
We cannot stand by and allow Governor O'Malley to move forward with construction of this $100 million youth jail. That is why Kinetics will be partnering with Rev. Heber Brown, III and other allies to host Justice Sunday, October 31, 2010 on the site of the proposed Juvenile Jail. If you would like to be a part of this program in anyway please contact us. We will need speakers, musicians, audio and video equipment and you.
Please join us for Prayer, Worship and Justice.
Stay tune for more details.
In love and service,
Jamye Wooten
Kinetics
www.Kineticnet.org
info@kineticnet.org
"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."
-Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love"
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Improper school-based arrests and referrals to law enforcement have a devastating impact on children. Studies show that being arrested has detrimental psychological effects on the child; nearly doubles the odds of dropping out of school, and, if coupled with a court appearance, nearly quadruples the odds of dropout; lowers standardized test scores; reduces future employment prospects; and increases the likelihood of future interaction with the criminal justice system.-POLICING IN SCHOOLS:
DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS | |
Black People Will Decide If Martin O'Malley Wins or Loses Maryland's Governor's Race
By Heber Brown, III
FaithinActionOnline.com
As our small group of courageous Afrikans stood up to the political goliath of O'Malley's machine...as we watched compromised Black politicians parade on stage to show "boss" how loyal they were to his agenda...as we walked up on Martin O'Malley's political operatives attempting to speak to Governor Martin O'Malley directly about his plans to move forward on the construction of a $104 million dollar youth jail in East Baltimore; I saw something in the eyes of O'Malley's people. I heard something in their voices and I recognized it. I saw fear. I heard panic. Governor Martin O'Malley is in trouble and he knows that it's a very good chance that he'll lose the 2010 Gubernatorial Election in Maryland. All you had to do was listen to Lt. Governor Anthony Brown address the room full of pastors and politicians this past Saturday at the Faith-based meeting. Before bringing O'Malley to the podium to address city preachers; Brown made it clear that this election would be no cakewalk. |
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Gubernatorial Forum on Children
September 30th
 |  | | Former Governor Bob Ehrlich* | Governor Martin O'Malley* |
Advocates for Children and Youth and the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics are convening a Gubernatorial Candidate Forum on Children, September 30, at the new Silver Spring Civic Building, at 7 pm.
A growing list of organizations are co-sponsors of the forum, which is non-partisan.
Baltimore radio host Marc Steiner will moderate the discussion, and it will be taped for broadcast on WEAA, Delmarva Public Radio and Free Speech TV.
Please join this important opportunity to discuss the future of children.
For more information, contact Dr. Jarvis Johnson, ACY Director of Organizing, 301-585-5333, jjohnson@acy.org
For a forum flyer to distribute to others click here.
*Invited
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New detention centers planned 
PSA-Dewberry / August 17, 2009
An artist's rendering by PSA-Dewberry of Fairfax, Va., shows the design for the proposed juvenile detention center.
PSA-Dewberry / August 17, 2009
The proposed five-story, 200,000-square-foot Baltimore Youth Detention Center will accommodate youths charged criminally as adults and will enable the state to increase services for youth offenders.
Baltimore Sun photo by Karl Merton Ferron / August 17, 2009
A view looking west on East Monument Street shows the site of the adjoining juvenile and women's detention centers in East Baltimore.
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POLICING IN SCHOOLS:
DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT
FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS
AN ACLU WHITE PAPER
BY CATHERINE Y. KIM AND I. INDIA GERONIMO
PUBLISHED AUGUST 2009
INTRODUCTION
K-12 public schools across the country have begun to deploy law enforcement agents on school grounds in growing numbers. Although there are no current national figures for the number of such officers, in 2004, 60 percent of high school teachers reported armed police officers stationed on school grounds,1 and in 2005, almost 70 percent of public school students ages 12 to 18 reported that police officers or security guards patrol their hallways.
Frequently referred to as "School Resource Officers" or SROs, these agents are often sworn police officers employed by the local police department and assigned to patrol public school hallways full-time. In larger jurisdictions such as Los Angeles and Houston, these officers may be employed directly by the school district.
Without addressing the question of whether police officers should be deployed to schools in the first instance, this White Paper posits that if they are deployed, they must be provided with the tools necessary to ensure a safe school environment while respecting the rights of students and the overall school climate.
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Maryland Correctional Enterprises
According to Maryland Correctional Enterprises, the prison industry arm of the Maryland Division of Correction, "In fiscal year 2010, Maryland Correctional Enterprises had unaudited revenues of $50.4 million ...MCE is currently ranked among the top 10 prison industry programs in the United States; ranking 8th in regards to total revenues generated and 6th in the number of inmates employed."
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Baltimore Agrees to Pay for 'Illegal Arrests'
by Sean Yoes
The settlement mandates the city retrain officers, review "quality of life" arrests like loitering and littering, and install an independent auditor to evaluate data and submit semiannual reports. The Baltimore City Police Department also agreed to officially reject the zero-tolerance policies and create new methods for dealing with low-level offenses. Current Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007, and it was during that time the "zero tolerance" policing policy was allegedly established. He argues the settlement is not a rebuke of his polices when he was mayor. "There was never, ever a policy that asked officers to go beyond the Constitution," O'Malley said during a press conference June 23. In 2005 more than 108,000 people were booked and processed at the Central Booking component of the Baltimore City Jail. Over 6,000 arrests were made in the month of April that year alone and the Baltimore City State's Attorney's office threw out 2,053 of those arrests. Maryland Delegate Jill P. Carter battled the zero tolerance policy by introducing legislation in the Maryland General Assembly and participating in public demonstrations for several years. "My efforts to stop illegal arrests of the 750,000 persons from 1999-2006 led to negative political repercussions," Carter said. "But, it also forced the change of policy we have today." |
Locating the School-to-Prison Pipeline
The "school-to-prison pipeline" refers to the
policies and practices that push our nation's
schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the
juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. For a growing number of students, the path to incarceration includes the following "stops":
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Mapping and Analyzing The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track Action Kit
This Action Kit is intended to help mobilized communities (parents, youth, advocates, and educators) understand and begin to address the schoolhouse to jailhouse track so that they may ultimately create caring learning environments that push students toward colleges and careers rather than prison. It includes information on:
- Collecting information and data about school discipline policies and practices;
- Analyzing and organizing the data; and
- Developing messages that resonate with your audience.
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| The number of children arrested or referred to court for school discipline has grown in recent years. In South Carolina, the single most common offense resulting in a juvenile court referral during the 2007-08 year was "Disturbing Schools." - POLICING IN SCHOOLS: DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS |
Md. moving forward on detention center projects
Two planned $100 million facilities in E. Baltimore would hold youths, women
Downtown Baltimore's campus of ancient-looking prison buildings, several of which date to the 1800s, is slated for a major face-lift as the state moves forward with plans for two new detention centers that would cost more than $100 million each.
A state architectural board is scheduled to review today the design for a five-story, 180-bed detention center for teens facing adult criminal charges. Construction of the glassy, modern building along East Monument Street could begin next summer.
Meanwhile, design of an 800-bed detention center for women began about a month ago.
The buildings would keep adult male detainees separate from women and teens as required by federal law, addressing long-standing Justice Department complaints. Now, men, women and teens share hallway, classroom and booking space, creating conditions that Benjamin Brown, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services' pretrial division, calls untenable.
"It definitely is a difficult place to manage today," Brown said.
The state agency has overseen Baltimore pretrial services, including the city jails, since the 1990s.
This week, the state settled a decades-old federal lawsuit over health and safety conditions at the Baltimore City Detention Center, parts of which are 150 years old, though prisoner rights advocates said plans for the new facilities were not a factor in that agreement.
The two projects are expected to cost the state more than $280 million. State lawmakers have approved money for design but not construction. They're expected to vote on the youth center construction during the next legislative session, which begins in January.
Although Maryland is strapped for cash amid a national economic downturn, lawmakers do not expect to postpone the projects, in part because the state's top bond rating enables it to borrow money cheaply.
Del. Keith E. Haynes, a Baltimore Democrat on the capital budget subcommittee, called the buildings "a good investment" because they would create jobs in construction and lead to the hiring of more state employees.
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Children of color and students with disabilities are disproportionately represented among these students. In Florida, Black youth, who represented only 22 percent of the overall juvenile population, accounted for 47 percent of all school-based delinquency referrals; youth with special needs accounted for 23 percent of all school-based referrals.- POLICING IN SCHOOLS:
DEVELOPING A GOVERNANCE DOCUMENT FOR SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS IN K-12 SCHOOLS
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About Us
... You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell. (Isaiah. 58:12)
Kinetics mission is to develop new ideas that work to strengthen social movements within the African-American community; providing them with the tools and skills to pursue justice and better address the needs of those whom they serve.
Kinetics is a project of Fusion Partnerships, Inc. | |
