MoCo officials tout the county’s diversity as one of its greatest strengths, but a new data dashboard report suggests otherwise.
Black people make up 52% of defendants in the Montgomery County Circuit Court while Hispanics make up 13%, according to the data dashboard.
“There really is growing consensus right now that issues of fairness, equity and justice in the American criminal legal system are paramount,” said Brian Johnson, the associate chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland.
This new data dashboard is available publicly online. The dashboard shows a variety of data from 2018-2022, such as demographics of defendants, victims characteristics, number and types of convictions and sentences imposed, diversity of prosecutors and efficiency in handling cases.
While researchers put together the data for the dashboard, they also created a racial equity report with the trends they discovered from 2018 to 2022.
According to the dashboard, 47% of cases filed in 2022 were against Black defendants, while only 20% of the county’s population is Black.
More cases have been filed against Black people than any other race from 2018-2022, the data showed.
In fact, an Office of Legislative Oversight report from 2021 showed that Black and Latino drivers are stopped for lower-level traffic violations at higher rates.
Montgomery County Councilmembers Will Jawando (D-At-large) and Kristen Mink (D-Dist. 5) have been pushing for the passage of the STEP Act, which would limit traffic stops for these minor violations.
Overall, Black and Hispanic defendants have more charges filed per case, and Black defendants face more serious charges compared to their white counterparts, the report indicated.
Additionally, Black defendants are overrepresented in the prosecution of violent offenses, such as murder, robbery and firearms/weapons crimes, according to the report.
Over a quarter of defendants prosecuted in the county live outside of the jurisdiction, the report stated.
Additionally, the data dashboard shows what is occurring inside the State’s Attorney’s Office. Last year, 73% of prosecutors in the office were white and 55% of them were women.
The State’s Attorney’s Office, along with researchers from the University of Maryland, George Mason University and Towson University, are partnering with the Prosecutorial Performance Indicators (PPIs) project led by researchers from Florida International University and Loyola University Chicago.
Melba Pearson, co-manager of the PPIs and Director of Prosecution Projects, who is from Florida International University, said this project is crucial to creating a more equal justice system.
“It is critical that policy decisions are driven by data, and that we are constantly examining trends to identify issues and ensure equitable solutions,” Pearson said at a Thursday press conference. “Data and transparency lead to greater access to justice, not less.”
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy added “We have not spent one cent of taxpayer money on this.”
Instead, the project has funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative.
McCarthy said at the press conference that the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office is the first office in the state to release this data
Prince George’s, Frederick and Charles counties will be implementing similar databases later next year, Pearson said.
Johnson, one of the authors of the report, emphasized that it is important for people to finally get a clear look into how prosecutors are impacting the justice system.
“Outside of the community of prosecutors, relatively little is known about how they exercise their discretion to justice,” Johnson said at the press conference. “Historically, offices have been reticent to open up their offices to external scrutiny or to share their data, either with researchers or with the public.”
McCarthy emphasized that the State’s Attorney’s Office did not influence the report results the researchers put it together independently.
“We have no editorial control,” McCarthy said. “These are their key findings.”
One of these key findings: “Relative to Montgomery County’s population, Black defendants are overrepresented in Circuit Court cases.”
The data released Thursday only reflects Montgomery County Circuit Court data, since more serious offenses are tried in that court, but the State’s Attorney’s Office said it aims to have District Court data available within the next year.
McCarthy said he is committed to using these findings to foster change.
“I’d like to further educate the community about some of the things we do about diversity and education and broadcast that information to the public,” McCarthy said. “Now that I can see how dashboard tool can be used, I think I’ve learned how to better communicate with the community about how we actually provide services to them.”
The State’s Attorney’s Office will be updating the dashboard going forward, and they said they are preemptively thinking of updating it monthly.
“One of the things we pledged with wanting to conduct this study initially is that this is an ongoing study here,” McCarthy said. “Some of the things that we’ve identified in the course of doing this work we need to drill down further.”
He explained that there is a lot more work to do to improve the criminal justice system, and he said the State’s Attorney’s Office will continue to be part of that, saying:
“We’re not done.”