December 2003

The Spotlight series is prepared periodically by the Department of Legislative Services, Office of Policy Analysis in an effort to provide the latest reported data concerning the State's performance in selected policy areas. This issue focuses on public safety trends. The Spotlight project is coordinated by David Romans. Jeremy McCoy, Guy Cherry, and William Honablew contributed to this edition.

Spotlight on Public Safety

Crime prevention, enforcement, and prison inmate populations continue to present challenges for Maryland's policymakers, judges, and public safety administrators, particularly in the face of recent State budgetary constraints.

This report provides a general overview of some of the major public safety trends in order to provide a glimpse into the current state of public safety in Maryland. Crime rates and arrest data trends, the point where offenders enter the State's public safety system, help determine the population of the State's correctional facilities. This issue of the Spotlight will examine crime rates and arrest data over the past several years and outline prison population intake, length of sentence, and recidivism data.

Delinquent acts committed by juveniles, while a major public safety issue, will be addressed in a future Spotlight report detailing the status of Maryland's children.

Crime Rates

The Federal Bureau of Investigation annually publishes Crime in the United States as a part of the National Uniform Crime Report Program that compiles national crime statistics and trends based on voluntary reporting by the states. In 1975 Maryland instituted its own Uniform Crime Report Program, requiring all local law enforcement agencies to submit various standardized crime statistics to the State Police based on the federal reporting categories. Based on those statistics, the Maryland State Police compiles the annual publication Crime in Maryland - Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The latest available UCR figures are through calendar 2001.

Among the more illustrative and frequently referenced features of the UCR is the crime rate. These rates are reflected in the number of offenses per 100,000 residents in the State, in an effort to facilitate comparison among places of varying population size.

Maryland vs. National Trends: Generally, Maryland's violent crime rates have been decreasing in a pattern that is parallel with the federal violent crime rates. However, Maryland's violent crime rate remains significantly higher than the national average. Over the 10-year period of 1992 through 2001, the State's average annual violent crime rate (890.7 violent crimes per 100,000 in population) was 43.0 percent above the national average rate (622.7 per 100,000) - see Exhibit 1. The rates for violent crimes listed in Exhibit 1 include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, property theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

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Exhibit 1: Maryland and National Violent Crime Rate Trends

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Likewise, Maryland's overall crime rate (includes violent and nonviolent offenses) has decreased in the past 10 years but remains consistently higher than the national average. However, in comparison with the stark difference between violent crime rates, Maryland's annual overall crime rate (5,669 crimes per 100,000 in population) over the 10-year period was 15.7 percent higher than the national average (4,898 crimes per 100,000) - see Exhibit 2.

As of 2001, the statewide average crime rate was approximately 4,960 offenses per 100,000 in population. There are significant differences in the crime rate from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, however. As outlined in Exhibit 3, in 2001 Baltimore City had a significantly higher crime rate than all other jurisdictions in the State. Other jurisdictions with a rate higher than the statewide average were Prince George's, Wicomico, and Worcester counties.

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Exhibit 2: Maryland and National Crime Rate Trends

While the jurisdictions that exceeded the average crime rate for the State in 2001 have traditionally reported higher than average levels of crime, each enjoyed a decrease in their crime rates over the 10-year period from 1992 to 2001. As listed in Exhibit 4, the crime rate in Baltimore City decreased 19.5 percent over the 10-year period, while Prince George's, Wicomico, and Worcester counties experienced decreases of 1.9, 13.4, and 30.3 percent, respectively. The statewide crime rate over that 10-year period decreased by 20.3 percent.

The only counties that encountered increases in crime rates over the 10-year period are rural counties (Caroline, Washington, and Allegany) with small populations and, accordingly, are subject to more drastic percentage changes based on a small number of crimes committed. (Annual crime rates per 100,000 in population for each Maryland jurisdiction from 1992 through 2001 are listed in Appendix 1 of this Spotlight).

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Exhibit 3: Total Crime Rate for 2001

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Exhibit 4: Percent Change in Crime Rate 1992-2001

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Drug Possession and Trafficking Arrests: Although overall crime rates in the State appear to have declined over the past 10 years, arrest totals for drug possession crimes have consistently increased (see Exhibit 5). From the 10-year low of 389.4 arrests per 100,000 residents for illegal drug possession in the State in 1992, to a rate of 570.0 arrests in 2000, the number of arrests increased nearly 47 percent. Even more startling, however, is the 21 percent increase in the rate of illegal drug possession arrests from 2000 (570.0 arrests per 100,000) to 2001 (690.5 arrests per 100,000). Part of this increase is attributable to more aggressive drug enforcement in Baltimore City in 2001. The drug possession arrest figures in Baltimore City increased 84 percent from 2000 to 2001.

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Exhibit 5: Drug Arrest Rates

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The Department of State Police started compiling arrest totals for drug offenses by county in 1995. Regional arrest totals for possession and sales/manufacturing are presented in Exhibits 6 and 7, respectively. Since 1995, overall arrests for possession have increased at an average annual rate of 5.7 percent while arrests for drug trafficking (sales/manufacturing) have declined by 1 percent. Significant differences in arrest rate trends among jurisdictions are apparent from Exhibits 6 and 7. Regional differences in arrest rates over time are undoubtedly influenced by demographic changes and by the intensity and type of enforcement efforts employed. A stark example of the impact that a change in enforcement policy can have is the 85 percent increase in trafficking arrests in Baltimore City from 2000 to 2001.

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Exhibit 6: Drug Arrests - Possession

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Exhibit 7: Drug Arrests - Sales/Manufacturing

From 1995 through 2001, Western Maryland and the northern suburbs (Carroll and Cecil counties) experienced the highest percentage increases in drugs arrests in the State. Decreases in arrests were limited to three of the State's most densely populated counties (Anne Arundel, Montgomery, and Prince George's counties). Regional trends in trafficking arrests appear to largely follow the trends for possession. Northern and Western Maryland counties again experienced increases in their average annual arrests of 3.3 and 7.5 percent, respectively, while some of the more populated jurisdictions experienced decreases in their arrest totals (Prince George's County with a 10.1 percent decrease in arrests, and Howard County with an 8.8 percent decrease).

Once an individual is arrested, the person will be held in a local detention center or in a Division of Pretrial Detention and Services facility pending a bail hearing. If bail is denied or the individual does not have enough money for bail, the individual will stay in the detention facility until trial. If the individual is found not guilty or the charges have been dropped during the trial, the individual will be released back into the community. Otherwise, the individual will either be sentenced to probation or a term of confinement to be served at a local detention facility or a State correctional institution.

Correctional System: State law requires that the Division of Correction (DOC) house inmates that have been sentenced by the courts to a term of confinement of more than 18 months. A person may also be sentenced to a DOC facility, at the court's discretion, if the term of confinement is between 12 and 18 months. In most jurisdictions, if the term of confinement is less than 12 months, the individual will be sentenced to a local detention center. However, if an individual is sentenced to any term of confinement in Baltimore City, that term will be served in a DOC facility.

As indicated in Exhibit 8, the number of offenders on probation has increased 11.9 percent, or 4,332 offenders, between 1994 and 2003. During the same period, the number of inmates under the jurisdiction of the State correctional facilities increased by 16.3 percent, or 3,332 inmates.

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Exhibit 8: Offenders on Probation and Inmates in State Facilities

The actual population growth rate at DOC facilities is substantially lower than it was during the 1980s and early 1990s. The Urban Institute, in its report entitled A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in Maryland, suggests that the growth rate has slowed because inmates are given shorter sentences by the courts and serve less time due to diminution of confinement credits. From 1990 to 1995, the average length of sentence was 53.26 months, with an average length of stay of 25.03 months. During the period 1996 through 2001, the average length of sentence was 41.97 months, while the average length of stay was 19.59 months.

The State standing population continues to grow because there are substantially more inmates entering the system than there were during the 1980s and the early 1990s. The average monthly number of intakes for fiscal 2003 was 1,243 compared to 890 in fiscal 1993. Additionally, a growing percentage of the inmates will remain incarcerated for extended periods (see Exhibit 9). Currently, 8,085 (34 percent) of the offenders in the active population are serving sentences of over 15 years compared to 6,302 (30 percent) in fiscal 1995. The standing population's growth substantially exceeds what the system was designed to handle.

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Exhibit 9: Sentence Length - Standing Population

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Operating capacity at DOC facilities is 164.11 percent over the design capacity. The design capacity represents the number of inmates for which the facility was designed. The operating capacity represents the number of inmates that are currently housed in the facilities. The net gain of inmates and the lack of sufficient new prison construction to meet the demand require that innovative solutions be developed to house the inmates.

During the last decade of prison population increases, nonconventional housing areas have been utilized to meet the housing need. Nonconventional housing can be defined as spaces originally designed for gymnasiums, dayrooms, basement storage, or temporary program trailers that have been converted into dormitories, thereby reducing the availability of program space and creating a substandard housing environment. DOC currently uses 2,537 nonconventional housing beds. The use of nonconventional housing creates hazardous conditions through increasing crowded conditions; reducing direct observation of inmates; reducing/eliminating compliance with health, life safety codes and standards; and reducing space originally designed for other inmate activities.

Given the crowding situation, DOC attempts to keep every bed occupied throughout the system. This requires some inmates' security levels to be reclassified. For example, an inmate who was initially classified as maximum security may be reassigned administratively to a medium security facility because of space availability. Conversely, an inmate who is initially classified as medium security may be reassigned to a maximum security facility. DOC indicates that the dearth of maximum security bed space makes the latter scenario unlikely. This forced reclassification may prevent inmates from receiving needed services or place them in environments where they may be disruptive to a facility's operation.

There are several ways to leave a correctional institution. As depicted in Exhibit 10, the most common methods are mandatory release or expiration of sentence and being placed on parole. Mandatory release occurs when an inmate has served the courts sentence minus any earned "good time" (diminution) credits. Expiration of sentence occurs when an inmate has served all of the time that the court has required in the original sentence. The number of inmates released due to mandatory release or expiration of sentence provisions has increased from approximately 5,400 in 1993 to 11,200 in 2003. This represents a 107.4 percent increase during that time period. During this same period, the number of inmates released through the parole mechanism decreased from approximately 4,300 in 1993 to 3,300 in 2003. This represents a 23.3 percent decline in the number of inmates released through the parole system.

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Exhibit 10: Type of Release from the Division of Correction

The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services uses a Repeat Incarceration Supervision Cycle (RISC) to follow up on offenders. The RISC sample includes only new convictions resulting in return to incarceration in the DOC or to supervision under the Division of Parole and Probation within three years of release from the DOC. Excluded would be subsequent commitments to local detention centers or re-arrests without conviction. Based on this very narrow definition of the criminal event that triggers recidivism, the findings show that in 1999 the rate of recidivism for DOC prisoners who were released after serving a sentence ranged from 24.3 percent the first year after release to a cumulative percent of 51.8 percent after the third year (see Exhibit 11).

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Exhibit 11: Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services

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Appendix 1

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