Why the Women’s Prison Association chose a Black woman from Baltimore to lead it
Photo: WIN-Initiative/Neleman/Getty Images Memorial Day weekend of 2003, I had my first run-in with law enforcement. I had just completed my freshman year of college, and it was my first Saturday night back home in Baltimore. I immediately linked up with some friends, and we drove to a public park and reservoir to partake in some herbal libations. Within minutes, my mother’s vehicle was surrounded by six police vehicles and a paddy wagon.
Months later, the judge ordered me to probation after chastising me at length in court for getting caught up “with the weed and the law” while majoring in political science at Washington College. He reminded me that I could have spent more than a night in jail, my life ruined. For less than three grams of marijuana.
I found myself distracted. People can’t get jobs or secure housing because they have a criminal record? How are they supposed to survive? Why are these challenges most pronounced in certain Black communities? Is it really a crime to be poor and Black in Baltimore City? In February 2015, Washington, D.C.–based think tanks published “The Right Investment: Corrections Spending in Baltimore City.” The report found that Maryland taxpayers spend nearly $300 million annually to incarcerate people from Baltimore City, including $17 million on residents of a single community: Sandtown-Winchester/Poplar Hill. This neighborhood sent the most people to state prison and had the greatest number return home from incarceration on parole or probation in 2014.
These challenges are not unique to Baltimore City. New York City spends $178 million to incarcerate 320 women annually. That’s $556,539 to incarcerate one woman. The overwhelming majority are Black and Brown and from East and Central Harlem, Stuyvesant Heights, and East New York — all low-income, working-class neighborhoods with a history of overpolicing, surveillance, and limited economic opportunity. Nationally, one in eight individuals released from state prisons each year is a woman.
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