Why Baltimore struggles to crack down on quality-of-life crimes

The men set up folding chairs and linger on the stoop of a shuttered club in Southwest Baltimore. Each day, they congregate almost directly underneath police signs declaring “NO LOITERING.”

Their presence unnerves 65-year-old Robert Richardson Jr., who lives across the street.

He said he’s witnessed what he suspects are hand-to-hand drug sales with motorists and other passersby. Richardson tinted his home’s windows so the men wouldn’t see him watching.

“I want to open the door. Believe it or not, it’s a very nice community,” Richardson said of the Shipley Hill neighborhood where he chose to retire. “It’s uncomfortable. There are seniors there. I don’t think it’s fair for me to pay property taxes and see it daily.”

Loitering, drinking in public and littering are among the host of crimes that often get overlooked in discussions about public safety in Baltimore. While the city is experiencing historic declines in homicides and shootings, some residents say other low-level offenses persist at unacceptable levels and erode their quality of life.

This summer, the city has had to wrestle again with illegal dirt bike riding on Baltimore’s streets and large crowds of young people gathering in popular entertainment districts like the Inner Harbor and Fells Point, where there has been underage drinking or flouting of curfew laws.

Public safety officials don’t dispute that nuisance crimes are a problem. But opinions among policymakers remain divided about how best to deal with them — and a big bureaucratic hurdle is only complicating matters.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates wants police to write citations for minor crimes to bring those responsible to court, make them do community service and offer them resources like substance abuse counseling. He is glad Baltimore Police are issuing more citations than years past, but wants to see them issue even more tickets.

That could be difficult, Police Commissioner Richard Worley said, because of the antiquated ways of Maryland Courts, which only accept citations handwritten by officers in triplicate.

Worley has lamented that the process of filling out a citation with pen and paper is tedious, each one taking an officer away from other responsibilities for about 30 minutes. At a June news conference, Worley described the opportunity cost as one his agency couldn’t afford in many scenarios.

“I know everybody wants those to be done, but if that happens, we won’t have anybody working,” Worley said. The police chief was responding to a question about whether citations would be utilized to rein in large crowds of young people gathering late at night in Fells Point over the summer.

In an interview this month, Worley said that what he attested to was true across the city, not just entertainment hubs.

“Everybody can say what they think we should do,” Worley told The Banner. “But when five [officers] are out of service and there’s a shooting, and they want to know where our cops are, and I’m like, ‘They were writing five citations,’ people would say, ‘Well, why were they writing five citations, why weren’t they here to stop the shooting?’”

Worley also noted that department policy mandates officers to use the “least intrusive” enforcement. That means issuing a warning and, if that works, forgoing a citation.

Arch McKown, Patterson Park Neighborhood Association safety committee chair, said he’s constantly hearing from neighbors about quality-of-life crimes. Their complaints include reports of illegal dumping, graffiti, off-leash dogs, young people out late at night, vandalizing of Patterson Park’s pool overnight and reckless dirt bikes.

“The dramatic decline in homicides has been phenomenal, and people are genuinely relieved and encouraged by that progress. But for most residents, the homicide rate is somewhat abstract because it isn’t something they encounter in their daily lives,” McKown said.

“Quality-of-life issues are different. They shape how people experience their neighborhood every day.”

Officers are expected to conduct foot patrols, check on businesses and notify other city agencies of neighborhood issues such as vacant properties and illegal dumping.

“I also think citations are a valuable tool in the toolbox,” McKown said. “Not every situation calls for an arrest, but not every violation should end with no consequence either.”

Four years ago, Bates campaigned on reviving the prosecution of offenses like drug possession and loitering. Upon taking office, Bates launched a program to address low-level offenses in which his office offers social services in lieu of prosecution when a person is eligible and willing.

But to his chagrin, Baltimore Police were slow to take up the cause. In the first six months of Bates’ “Citation Docket,” BPD officers issued just 18 citations, according to the State’s Attorney’s Office.

The next year, in 2024, officers submitted 131 citations, the prosecutor’s office said. They upped their output to 222 by 2025, an almost 70% increase. As of mid-July, BPD was on track to outpace last year in the number of citations.

Emily Witty, a spokesperson for Bates, credited police for making “meaningful progress in increasing the number of citations issued” but called for even more.

While the courts accept electronic traffic citations, Maryland Judiciary spokesperson Nick Cavey said there have only been discussions between police and the courts so far to expand the option for other citations.

If the upgrade finally comes through, it would only take Baltimore Police officers five minutes to complete using technology the agency already has, according to the department chief.

“When we write a criminal citation, they have to pull out the paper and pen,” Worley said earlier this summer. “Every word has to be verbatim to the charge or the charge gets thrown out. It takes about half an hour to write it. More issues if they don’t have ID. If it’s a juvenile, it’s even worse.”

University of Baltimore law professor David Jaros said that officials should offer services to people suspected of committing low-level crimes — if they do anything at all.

“I’m sympathetic to the impulse of community members and the state’s attorney to respond to quality of life issues, which are really frustrating and impact people’s ability to feel good about their community and feel safe. The fact is issuing citations is unlikely to solve the problems,” said Jaros, faculty director of the university’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform.

Tickets that require people to appear in court can quickly escalate into arrest warrants if the person fails to appear, Jaros said. That can exacerbate stress on a person who is already struggling.

Andrew Schuster, interim executive director of the York Road Improvement District, said the corridor in North Baltimore tries to avoid reporting people to law enforcement for quality-of-life crimes. Instead, they have equipped outreach workers with a list of resources to offer, such as housing services for someone experiencing homelessness.

“I think having a person-centered approach to these types of issues is really important,” said Schuster’s colleague Diamyn Wilson.

In Southwest Baltimore, Richardson, the retiree, still worries that relatively minor crimes will devolve into something more serious.

Police have sent patrol cars to his block, Richardson said. That deters the behavior, but the men are back out on the stoop almost as soon as the officer gives a warning to move along and then leaves.

Keeping people from hanging out in front of a store or on a sidewalk is only enforceable if they impede the flow of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, according to Baltimore Police policy.

“It took a month or two to have one citation written,” Richardson said. “I don’t know if it gives them more work to do because it’s a low-level crime for them.”