By Baltimore Comptroller Bill Henry
A decade ago, in the week following the tragic death of Freddie Gray and in the wake of the Baltimore uprising, it felt important to me to point out the obvious to our residents and to our country: When you prioritize police over children, when you treat our youth as a problem and not an asset, then what happened in Baltimore that week becomes almost inevitable.
In the ‘90s, the aftereffects of a failed war on drugs led to the rise of Broken Windows policing. The Broken Windows theory goes that if you tackle small crimes, enforcement would trickle up and suppress the larger criminal activity. This philosophy sounded great to city leaders in places like Baltimore looking for solutions to drug-related crime. If it worked in Rudy Guiliani’s New York City, why couldn’t it work here?
Investment in Broken Windows quickly ballooned, and from 1991 to 2015 Baltimore Police Department’s budget tripled in size. During that same time, funding for programs focused on youth and neighborhood development – recreation centers, libraries, after-school programs and summer jobs – either stagnated or was reduced or cut completely.
In 2015, Broken Windows finally broke Baltimore. While the national media fixated on the violence of the uprising, those of us who knew we would still be here after the cameras left recognized that it was a time for acknowledgement and clarity. That week during a City Council meeting I said what we all knew: Baltimore had spent the past 30 years purposely disinvesting in our young people in favor of catching and caging them. That disinvestment showed itself in our city’s streets that week.
Have we improved in the last decade? In some areas, sure. A new generation of city leaders understands that overcharged policing tactics aren’t the only solution to our problems. Significant investments have been made in non-violent intervention and in enhanced youth programs. Since 2016 the Baltimore Police Department has operated under a federal consent decree emphasizing greater accountability. Acknowledging that even one killing is unacceptable in our city, homicides are at historic lows.
Still, as Baltimore City’s comptroller, my job is to point out how our tax dollars are being spent. In the fiscal year 2026 preliminary budget, BPD is set to receive $614,014,239, with a mandate from the federal consent decree to continue to spend more on staffing and training facilities.
Meanwhile, Recreation and Parks’ proposed budget is $89,142,756, while Enoch Pratt Library sits at $48,446,191. We are financially handicapped by a federal consent decree that we have to spend our way out of. What would a similar mandate look like for youth investment?
A city’s budget speaks to its values. These are big numbers shouting that Baltimore continues to value law enforcement over youth development. In doing so we continue to ignore the truth that was revealed to us a decade ago – to our own detriment. This needs to change, for the health of our children, our residents and our city.