BALTIMORE, MD. (Thursday, July 7, 2022) — Today, Mayor Brandon M. Scott and Police Commissioner Michael Harrison announced Phase 2 of the Redistricting Plan.
Earlier this year, Mayor Scott and Commissioner Harrison announced their plan to modernize the Department into a world-class law enforcement agency by redrawing the geographic boundaries of its nine police districts. This will mark the most significant change to district lines in more than 50 years.
The draft map under consideration is designed to rebalance personnel among the districts in the long run and improve the average response times across all communities in Baltimore. The plan is also intended to balance the workload among districts and reunite once divided neighborhoods. This creates an improved focus on community policing and engagement.
“Population, workload, crime trends, even individual neighborhoods have changed dramatically over the past years,” said Mayor Brandon M. Scott, who has been engaged in this work dating back to his days as a member of the City Council. “This is why, as a Councilman, I worked with Senator Cory McCray to ensure we were changing our districts regularly to account for our constantly evolving city. As Mayor, I am excited to announce that work has finally begun. Facilitating community input throughout the Redistricting process will allow us to modernize policing and transform BPD into a world-class law enforcement agency with – not for – our residents.”
Redistricting will enable the BPD to:
- Reunite 18 neighborhoods that were previously divided by Police district lines
- Respond to crime more efficiently in each geographic area
- Create better alignment for the Crime Reduction Strategy
- Efficiently manage law enforcement resources
- Provide officer workload balance for each district
- Optimize resource allocation for smarter policing
“As a part of this data-driven process, it is critically important that we consider all of the available crime statistics, in addition to the valuable input from our communities,” said Commissioner Michael Harrison. “Our goal is to bring about a renewed sense of safety and inclusion. Restoring the balance of manpower and efficient allocation of resources across Baltimore brings us one step closer to making the Department a premier law enforcement agency.”
In June 2022, the public feedback form was released and generated more than 400 responses from the community. The BPD compiled that data in order to help redraw the maps.
Some of the general feedback received included:
- Certain districts are too large
- Specific communities are seeking to be reunited under a single police district
- Grouping communities together that are confronting similar challenges or have historically worked in collaboration
The BPD is now calling for public input on the next step of the process – the proposed geographic boundaries and maps. This second public input process may bring new data and perspectives on Redistricting to light, and the BPD Redistricting team will work to complete a full review of public input and determine any required adjustments to boundaries by early August.
Go to baltimorepolice.org/redistricting to submit the second online feedback form through July 28.
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