Areas of Harford County that lie south and east of I-95 have the most county residents incarcerated in state prisons, according to a study released earlier this week.
Included are the cities of Aberdeen and Havre de Grace, where resident incarceration rates are among the state’s highest for municipalities.
But a few more sparsely populated areas of northern Harford also have relatively high rates of incarceration among their residents compared to the county as a whole.
The study, called “The Right Investment? Corrections spending in Baltimore City,” was done by the Justice Policy Institute and Prison Policy Initiative. While it specifically looked at incarceration rates and spending for Baltimore City neighborhoods and resulting community impacts, it includes data from across the state for counties, ZIP codes, cities and towns and state legislative districts.
“With more than 20,000 people in prison and a cost of almost one billion dollars a year, Maryland’s corrections system consumes significant public resources,” the study’s executive summary notes.
“Knowing more about the impact incarceration has on communities would help state policy makers and residents make more informed choices on better ways to invest taxpayer resources in more effective public safety strategies and opportunities to help people succeed,” the summary states.
The study’s population data is from the 2010 census, when a new Maryland law, called the No Representation Without Population Act of 2010, began requiring that the inmates of state prisons be counted in their home communities, not the communities where they were in prison, for the purposes of drawing state legislative districts.
Though the population data is four years old, it tends to support what people see and believe from reading police blotter and crime stories published in The Aegis and The Record each week, namely that the local criminal population – the part that ends up doing time in the state corrections system – mostly has ties to the Route 40 corridor between Joppatowne and Havre de Grace.
Maryland had 22,087 state residents incarcerated in its prisons in 2010 from a population of 5,773,522, according to the study, which uses incarceration rates of 100,000 to compare areas of with different populations. The state’s rate of 383 inmates per 100,000 was lower than the national average of 455.
When the rate per 100,000 is used as a baseline, not every high rate of incarceration in Harford shows up in the Route 40 corridor, but the latter area still was home to the most inmates numerically and some extremely high rates per 100,000.
Eight cities had rates of incarceration greater than the state average, the study notes. While Baltimore City was the highest, both Aberdeen and Havre de Grace were on that list, along with Hagerstown, Cambridge, Salisbury, Easton and Annapolis.
Harford County, with a population of 244,826 and 568 residents in state prisons, had an incarceration rate per 100,000 of 232, far below Baltimore City’s rate of 1,255, or 7,795 residents incarcerated out of a population of 620,691.
The city’s rate per 100,000 was 2.3 times more than the next highest, Wicomico County, whose rate was 547 per 100,000.
Several smaller counties, Wicomico included, had rates of incarceration per 100,000 higher than Harford’s. But Harford’s rate was not only higher than Montgomery County’s 59 per 100,000, the state’s most populous county had just four more residents locked up than Harford, 572 versus 568, and Montgomery’s population is nearly four times greater.
Harford had twice as many residents in state prisons as Frederick County, with 274 and about 10,000 fewer residents, and three times as many as Howard County, with 172 and about 55,000 more residents. Cecil County, with a population of 101,108, had 179 residents in state prisons, for a rate of 177 per 100,000.
Among Harford’s three incorporated municipalities, the City of Aberdeen had 105 residents locked up in state prisons from a population of 14,959 – a rate of 702 per 100,000; the Town of Bel Air had 13 residents in state prisons from a population of 10,120 – 128.5 per 100,000; and the City of Havre de Grace had 53 residents incarcerated from a population of 12,592 – 409.2 per 100,000.
Among postal ZIP codes, Edgewood (21040) had 151 residents incarcerated from a population of 24,420, while Aberdeen (21001) had 132 incarcerated from a population of 21,487, rates per 100,000 of 618 and 614, respectively. For comparison, the Randallstown ZIP in Baltimore County (21133) with a population of 29,998 had 109 residents incarcerated, a rate of 363 per 100,000.
The Havre de Grace ZIP (21078) had 64 residents in prison from a population of 17,603, while the Joppa ZIP (21085) had 38 residents incarcerated out of 16,171, for rates per 100,000 of 364 and 235, respectively.
Belcamp (21017) had eight in prison from 7,062 residents, and Churchville (21028) had four from 3,460.
The two Bel Air ZIPs (21014 and 21015), which extend well beyond the town limits, each had 30 residents incarcerated from a combined population of 63,810 and a rate of 94. The Abingdon ZIP (21009) had 29 incarcerated from a population of 29,766, a rate of 97.
For comparison, three ZIPs around Columbia in Howard County, with a total population of 95,072, had a state inmate population of 91, a rate per 100,000 of 96.
The number of state prison inmates from areas in northern Harford by ZIP code included: Fallston (21047), six from 11,873; Forest Hill (21050), 16 from 18,202; Street (21154), 14 from 6,464; Pylesville (21132), seven from 2,634; and Darlington (21034), 16 from 3,387.
Darlington’s and Pylesville’s rates per 100,000 of 472 and 266, respectively, were higher than the county’s average of 232, while Street’s rate of 217 was just under it.
“With no guarantee that increased incarceration leads to long-term community safety, but every indication that incarceration disrupts lives, families and communities, continued investment in prisons is questionable,” the study’s authors wrote.
They suggested finding ways to reduce imprisonment – pretrial services and sentencing reform, for example – in order to redirect money spent on prisons “to support locally-driven services, supports and opportunities that meet the unique needs of the communities they serve, especially related to work, education, health and housing.”
Communities should find alternatives to jail expansion, they said, noting that it costs $37,000 annually to incarcerate one person, an amount which could pay for drug treatment for eight adults, or employment training for seven or a GED course for 37.
The Justice Policy Institute is “a research and policy organization dedicated to ending society’s reliance on incarceration,” according to the study. To read “The Right Investment?” and to view supporting data, visit http://www.justicepolicy.org/research/8764.
