Though the big stick of arrest is always a patrol officer?s option, in a city that turns in 1 million 911 calls a year, walking softly in the ways of conflict resolution is to be preferred ? and one local nonprofit is helping Baltimore?s finest do just that.
“They do great work,” Baltimore City Police spokesperson Matt Jablow said of the urban mediation and conflict resolution group, Community Mediation Program Inc. “They come to our in-service training every week and train our officers in the art of mediation.
“It?s really been an important and productive partnership for us,” Jablow added, alluding to a brace of public interest lawsuits filed against the department for perceived overzealous arrest practices in 2005, when 100,000 arrests were made in a city of 600,000. “Mediation gives these officers an important and effective way to deal with cases that don?t call for arrest.”
Jablow said only 10 percent of the department?s annual tally of 911 calls result in arrest and that now fully two-thirds of the force ? 2,000 officers ? have undergone the conflict-resolution training program.
“We do conflict resolution training in a really wide variety of settings,” said Community Mediation Program Executive Director Caroline Harmon, who added that the organization partners with groups such as the police and the 1,000-employee Maryland Office of Public Defenders.
The program also grooms a diverse set of volunteer community mediators for neighborhood work, she noted. “So we?re always training new mediators of all ages,” she said.
“Our mission,” Harmon explained, “is to reduce violence and increase the use of nonviolent conflict resolution strategies as well as increase access to mediation.”
“Most of our mediations are not with a group,” said Jerri Thomas, the program?s mediation coordinator, of the free service. “They?re with the average Baltimore citizen, who is having different kinds of interpersonal conflict [who get referred to us by our referral partners].”
The 10-year-old organization, which is funded through foundation grants and private donations, last week honored Baltimore City Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm with its “peacemaker of the year” award, toasting his support of department conflict resolution training and its policy of referring disputing citizens to the program.
Reportedly, since the police started sending its officers through the program, the department?s 2007 arrest rate is 8 percent lower ? as of mid-November ? than that of 2005.
More information
» Community Mediation Program
3333 Greenmount Ave.
Baltimore
410-467-9165
