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Over an 11 day period, 76% of the #domesticviolence cases heard in Courtroom 5 of the Baltimore City District Court were dismissed--nolle prosequi ("we shall no longer prosecute") or nolle'd by the State's Attorney. https://blogs.ubalt.edu/legaldatadesign/wp-content/uploads/sites/1164/2021/04/DV_Infographic_FINALletter-size.pdf
In 57% of those cases, defendants had been held without bail. The average defendant held without bail spent 28.5 days in jail. Just to have their cases dismissed. 28.5 days when they could have been working. 28.5 days when they didn't need to be caged--and exposed to COVID.
Under- and unemployment is highly correlated with use of violence against an intimate partner. Experiencing trauma--the kind of trauma routinely inflicted in jails--is highly correlated with use of violence.
For 28.5 days on average, these defendants were unable to work--surely leading to longer-term unemployment for some of them--and exposed to trauma that they then took back into their communities and into their relationships.
Criminalization does not decrease or deter intimate partner violence. It exacerbates the correlates of intimate partner violence. Holding people without bail destabilizes families and communities. For more: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520295575/decriminalizing-domestic-violence
Thanks to @ColinStarger and the University of Baltimore Legal Data and Design Clinic for this work.
