Items 1 and 2 below are a February 8 Federalist Society Blog post and February 14 letter to the judge handling the Baltimore police consent decree discussing that, while the proposed decree is premised on the belief that generally reducing adverse criminal justice outcomes will tend to reduce (a) relative racial and other demographic differences in rates of experiencing the outcomes and (b) the proportions more susceptible groups make up of persons experiencing the outcomes, in fact reducing the outcomes will tend to increase (a) and (b).
The letter is not in accord with any court procedure and may or may not be considered by the court. But the court established procedures for public comment on the proposed decree by an order of February 15.[3] Written submissions by email to Baltimore.Consent.Decree@usdoj.gov will be received up until 5:00 p.m. on March 7. Possibly by then the Department of Justice will itself have recognized this issue.
In the “To identify …” paragraph of the post (penultimate paragraph on page 6 of the PDF), I touch upon what to me is a complex denominator problem regarding the measurement of demographic differences in stops and arrests.
1. http://www.fed-soc.org/blog/detail/compliance-nightmare-looms-for-baltimore-police-department
http://jpscanlan.com/images/Compliance_Nightmare_Looms_for_Baltimore_Police_Department.pdf
2.http://jpscanlan.com/images/Letter_to_the_Honorable_James_K._Bredar_Feb._14,_2017_.pdf
3. http://jpscanlan.com/images/US_v._Baltimore_Police_Order_Feb._15,_2017_.pdf
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James Scanlan
James P. Scanlan Attorney At Law
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