News from Center for Criminal Justice Reform

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June 2024

It has been a busy

and impactful year

at CCJR!

We are excited to share some updates on our growing body of work, and to thank and connect with our partners across the country and state.

Onward!

CCJR Makes Major Impact in 2024 Session

A core part of the Center’s work occurs during the Maryland General Assembly’s action-packed, 90-day legislative session. From January to April, you can often find the Center’s team in Annapolis, collaborating with partners, meeting with legislators, and testifying on bills affecting prisons and jails, policing, expungement, reentry, sentencing, drug policy, violence reduction, and more.

This year, the Center broadened and deepened its relationships and efforts. In the 2024 session, the Center presented original written and/or oral testimony on 29 bills. It signed on to written testimony with partners on seven additional bills. Center staff authored op-ed pieces to educate the public and legislators about legislation impacting access to expungement , the importance of second chances, and youth justice reform.

Despite some disappointing outcomes -- and the need to play substantial defense against counterproductive legislation -- the Center was involved in several noteworthy victories, including securing the passage of independent oversight of Maryland's prisons through establishment of a correctional ombudsman, and the historic Victim Compensation Reform Act of 2024. This transformational reform represents a true sea change in how Maryland’s victim compensation program is administered, especially for those who have long been most harmed yet least helped throughout the state.

Read a full summary of CCJR’s legislative impact.

Center Accolades

Adding to a growing list of awards and recognition since the Center’s 2022 launch, Baltimore magazine featured CCJR’s Heather Warnken in its June 2024 GameChangers issue uplifting inspiring leaders across diverse sectors.

Warnken spoke at a June 12 GameChangers event alongside Gov. Wes Moore and other Baltimore honorees at Center Stage. She is pictured with UBalt Law's incoming dean, LaVonda Reed.

Warnken also was named to The Daily Record's list of Maryland’s Leaders in Law in 2023, and she received the law school’s Excellence in Public Discourse Award alongside CCJR's faculty director, Prof. David Jaros.

The Office of the Attorney General and Office of the Public Defender of Maryland (OPD) recently joined forces with numerous partners to launch the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative (MEJC), a historic initiative to shape a comprehensive plan for addressing mass incarceration and the extreme racial disparities throughout Maryland’s prisons and jails.

As part of the critical community dialogues that must accompany MEJC’s efforts, on Monday, June 17 CCJR and OPD will co-host a screening and panel discussion of Ava Duvernay’s acclaimed film “13th,” a documentary examining the history of the U.S. prison system and mass incarceration. The event, at the UBalt School of Law, is free and open to the public. Learn more and register.

CCJR is proud to participate in MEJC in several ways. Executive Director Heather Warnken serves on the executive committee and as co-chair of the Law Enforcement Policies and Practices Work Group, as well as serving on additional work groups spanning Prison and Jail Detention Reform, Promoting Successful Reentry, and Criminal Law and Sentencing Reform.

Spotlight on CCJR Legal Fellow Flannery Gallagher

CCJR’s team grew in October 2023 with the addition of legal fellow Flannery Gallagher. Prior to coming to the University of Baltimore, she practiced law at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., where she represented clients in complex litigation matters and in internal and government investigations.

At Covington, Gallagher’s pro bono practice focused on individuals and communities affected by gun violence, extreme sentencing, and police violence. She served as a full-time loaned associate at Children’s Law Center, where she represented low-income clients in contested custody matters in D.C. Superior Court.

Gallagher is interested in combining the disciplines of public health and law to address the brutality and many failures of our criminal legal system, and to improve the safety and well-being of our communities. At the Center, she provides technical support and advice to CCJR’s partners and coalitions, drafts testimony advancing CCJR’s legislative priorities, and supervises students participating in the Center’s applied education opportunities.

She holds a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School, an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a B.A., cum laude, from Columbia University.

Center Takes Action Protecting Civil Rights

CCJR Executive Director Heather Warnken was invited to testify before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in November 2023, joining a prestigious panel of national thought leaders on the topic of strategies for addressing racial disparities in violent victimization throughout the United States, including researchers, advocates, elected leaders and other policymakers.

Watch her testimony before the U.S. Commission.

Warnken also serves on Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s Civil Rights Advisory Council.

Spotlight on CCJR Student Fellows and Applied Legal Education Opportunities

Each year the Center hires law student fellows to learn about criminal legal policy and to play a meaningful role in advancing the Center’s mission. This year, in addition to providing critical research and writing support on multiple pieces of CCJR’s legislative work, Jessica Holliday, Class of 2025, testified before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in support of a bill to restrict the use of solitary confinement in Maryland prisons.

Erin Turvey, Class of 2024, also played a pivotal role in research and writing support for CCJR’s work throughout the spring semester, including drafting the Center’s testimony in support of SB 948/HB 1366, which would have eliminated the cost of telephone communications for incarcerated people and their loved ones in state correctional facilities.

For the past three years, the Center and the Office of the Public Defender’s Decarceration Initiative have jointly placed students in volunteer roles supporting attorneys working on Juvenile Restoration Act (JRA) motions.

The JRA allows people who have served at least 20 years of a sentence for a crime committed when they were under the age of 18 to file a motion asking the court to reduce their sentence.

This law recognizes the diminished culpability of children as well as the potential for young people to change over time.

Center News and Notes

In April 2024, Executive Director Heather Warnken served as the Commencement speaker for the No Struggle, No Success Reentry Program graduation ceremony.

The event brought together reentry leaders and champions throughout the state, including Maryland DPSCS Secretary Carolyn Scruggs and Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby, alongside friends and family, to celebrate the 2024 graduates for their numerous achievements spanning education, employment, family reunification and more, in their transitions back to the community from incarceration.

CCJR's Heather Warnken was appointed by Gov. Wes Moore to serve on the Task Force to Study Transparency Standards for State's Attorneys, participating in the drafting and delivery of a final Report to the Maryland General Assembly.

Warnken will join partners from across the country in late June, at the Giffords Center for Violence Intervention's annual Community Violence Intervention Conference in Los Angeles. She will co-present on a panel, "The Intersection of Victim/Survivor Services in CVI."