The public safety records of the two executives running for governor have spawned almost as much debate as their records on education. But in contrast to education, where they pay the bills but don?t directly oversee the bureaucracies that run the schools, the governor and mayor have direct authority over law enforcement agencies, and on the state level, prisons and parole.
Both say they?ve reduced crime, but on a per capita basis, this may not be true, depending on how the statistics are calculated. Gov. Robert Ehrlich says Baltimore City police arrest too many people who are never charged or prosecuted. Mayor Martin O?Malley says the crime in the city would be lower if it weren?t for the revolving door justice of the state prisons and parole system.
Interestingly, both candidates actually agree that the core of the crime problem in the city and Maryland as a whole results from the drug trade and addiction. Ehrlich has increased programs to provide drug treatment for arrested juveniles, keeping them out of detention, and for nonviolent offenders already in prison. O?Malley favors even more drug treatment options.
The police and prisons guards who probably have the best firsthand knowledge of crime on the street are divided in their endorsements. Unions representing thousands of state police and correctional officers are backing O?Malley. Small to no pay raises in Ehrlich budgets are a factor, as is the murder of two correctional guards.
Thousands more county and local officers in the Fraternal Order of Police throughout Maryland have endorsed Ehrlich, who did not get their support last time. Ehrlich touts new legislation he backed to increase the monitoring of sexual predators and raise penalties for drunk driving and underage drinking.
Both men have stains on their public safety records.
Running for mayor, O?Malley promised to bring the homicide rate down to 175 a year in the second most violent city in America ? a promise Ehrlich has said the mayor probably should not have made. The homicide rate has come down from an average of 320 a year to an annual average of 264 under O?Malley. He compounded the missed target in a WJZ debate, saying he had kept the rate under 200, an error his campaign promptly corrected.
Ehrlich has had substantial complaints about his management of the prisons and juvenile justice systems. A state audit found recently that the state prison system has at least 500 vacancies.
