O'Malley called critics of his policy "ideologues on the left.

[Douglas Carpenter]

O'Malley still believes that 100,000 arrests in a city of 600,000 is a great ide.


BALTIMORE —Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday she will not combat crime by returning to the days of so-called mass arrests of minor offenses.

In an opinion-editorial piece published Wednesday in The Baltimore Sun, Gov. Martin O'Malley stepped up his campaign to get the city to go back to what he did when he was mayor: have a policing policy that led to more than 100,000 arrests per year -- many for minor offenses.

The mayor and governor are widely seen as friends, but they are not on the same page on this issue and the continuing debate, the mayor said, is causing many communities to worry.

"Homicides are going up for the second year in a row, and shootings are up year to date. Why? I believe it has to do with the fact that enforcement levels have fallen to a 13-year low," the governor wrote.

O'Malley called critics of his policy "ideologues on the left." . . .

"Honest minds can differ, but this honest mind is also fact-dependent, and the data show that more arrests didn't lead to a safer city," Rawlings-Blake countered Wednesday.

The mayor's office produced a chart showing a steady decline in violent crime since 2006 -- the year O'Malley left City Hall -- and arrests reached their peak. It was to counter a chart produced by the governor to argue otherwise.

In some communities, the tactic was known as "the bad old days" when so many people got locked up that the line at Central Booking was long.


More: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/mayor-vows-not-to-return-to-days-of-mass-arrests-in-baltimore/22118078

[still_one]

1. That is interesting. Maybe a wrong choice of words, but I sure would like a follow up on this

For instance, what percentage of the arrests were for minor offenses, and what constituted a minor offense