Gov. Martin O?Malley went back to basics last week, as he pegged the fight against violent crime as “one of our highest priorities this year.”
The governor drew hearty applause during his half-hour speech to the General Assembly as he spent close to eight minutes discussing the steps he had taken and is proposing to go after violent offenders.
Since his days on the Baltimore City Council, O?Malley, a former prosecutor, has been a crusader on crime and public safety, with mixed results.
House Speaker Michael Busch called the governor?s expertise and passion on crime and public safety issues “his greatest strength.”
“He?s really engaged in the issue of public safety,” Busch said.
After a bruising and divisive special session to cure a deficit by raising taxes, initiatives on violent crime have the advantage of enjoying strong bipartisan support and not costing an awful lot of money, at least compared with the sinkholes of education and health care. O?Malley?s StateStat program initiated performance accountability measures first in the Departments of Juvenile Services, and Public Safety and Correctional
Services.
As mayor, where the city?s performance on reducing crime was at best uneven, O?Malley had complained that the state had never done enough to keep tabs on repeat violent offenders, the source of much of the street crime. They returned to the streets as uneducated, unskilled and addicted as when they went to prison, he said.
A lot of O?Malley?s new initiatives are directed at changing that. He now controls the levers of state power, and a political ally is the mayor of Baltimore ? the first time in three decades that the mayor and governor are on friendly terms.
Now all they have to do is reduce crime.
Ninth-most violent
O?Malley often mentions, as he did last week, that Maryland ranks as one of the most violent states in the nation.
In 2006, Maryland?s ranking actually dropped to ninth place, after being fourth and fifth in the previous years. Imprisoning increasing numbers of criminals since 1980, Maryland?s crime rate, according to FBI figures, has actually gone down 37 percent, But violent crime in the rest of the nation declined as well. As crime rates have dropped, the cost of incarceration is up, to about $28,000 per prisoner per
year.
The first hearing on the budget of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services focused on those numbers. “We expect major challenges,” said Secretary Gary Maynard. Maryland convicts return to prison 55 percent of the time, a rate five points higher than the national average.
Asked how StateStat was working, Maynard told The Examiner it seemed to be a help more than a hindrance. Every two weeks, corrections folks sit down with O?Malley?s staff to go over statistics, and on alternating weeks, the parole and probation people are brought in.
O?Malley attends most of the crime meetings, and that impresses Maynard, who has headed the prison systems in Iowa, Oklahoma and South Carolina. This gives Maynard weekly contact with the chief executive on issues of real import to his department ? the most engagement he?s had with the seven governors with whom he?s
worked.
Cost of Government
The governor used some statistics in last week?s speech to illustrate the struggles of “hard-working and loving families.” Over the last seven years, real wages (inflation-adjusted) have gone up “only 1 percent,” while a gallon of milk rose 30 percent; a loaf of bread, 20 percent; a gallon of gas, 100 percent; health insurance, 78
percent.
What about state government? The final fiscal 2001 budget was $20.065 billion; the fiscal 2007 budget was $28.756. Adjusting year 2000 dollars for inflation, using two different inflation calculators, total state spending went up about $5.262 billion, or 26 percent.
