Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

 As usual, it's Jazz Shaw at Hot Air, Baltimore Permanently Abandons Prosecuting Many Types Of Crime

Back in March of last year, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby quietly began the process of “decriminalizing” a number of low-level crimes such as drug possession and prostitution. The move was ostensibly made to reduce jail populations during the pandemic to prevent the spread of COVID behind bars. (We’ll get to the real reason in a moment.) Now, after a year of refusing to prosecute people for breaking laws that are still on the books, Mosby has declared the project to be such a resounding success that she’s going to make those changes permanent, even if we get the pandemic under control. What could possibly go wrong? (Yahoo News)

A year ago, as the coronavirus began to spread across Maryland, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby stopped prosecuting drug possession, prostitution, minor traffic violations and other low-level offenses, a move aimed at curbing Covid-19’s spread behind bars.

That shift — repeated by prosecutors in many other cities — didn’t just reduce jail populations. In Baltimore, nearly all categories of crime have since declined, confirming to Mosby what she and criminal justice experts have argued for years: Crackdowns on quality-of-life crimes are not necessary for stopping more serious crime.

On Friday, Mosby announced that she was making her pandemic experiment permanent, saying Baltimore — for decades notorious for runaway violence and rough policing — had become a case study in criminal justice reform.

Hearing Marilyn Mosby call Baltimore “a case study in criminal justice reform” is a line I wouldn’t have expected to see outside of a Saturday Night Live skit or The Onion. In case that name sounds familiar to you, it might be because Marilyn Mosby (along with her husband, the president of the City Council) is currently dodging a grand jury investigation into a number of her affairs. These include “forgetting” to pay her taxes, a dodgy travel company she started as a side gig, and her recent purchase of two Florida vacation homes while crying poverty back in Maryland. At this point, she’s probably just glad to be generating some headlines about literally anything else than a corruption investigation. . . . 

I have no problem with decriminalizing minor drug possession and prostitution, but the low level violence and robbery need to be enforece.