State of the State Address
January 23, 2008
Public Safety and Violent Crime
But as we look to the year ahead, I'd like to go back, too, and begin really again with the most fundamental priority and responsibility that any Government has to its people. And that is to safeguard the lives of our citizens, the safety of our citizens, our neighborhoods and our communities.
Public safety is the foundation of any civilized society and in Maryland we have the opportunity to make our State the safest State in the union, instead of allowing ourselves year after year to be ranked as one of the most violent States in the union.
For too long we've allowed ourselves to look at violent crime as a socioeconomic problem or some sort of thorny cultural problem or something that just defies solution because that's just the way it is.
And most sadly of all, that sort of defeatist, low expectation attitude is too often rooted in the opinions that we hold consciously and subconsciously of our fellow neighbors, because of differences of race or class or place.
But this problem of ours, this problem in Maryland, is not the concern of one race or one city or one county, it is everyone's problem. As Robert Kennedy told us 40 years ago, and I quote, "The victims of violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown, they are, most important of all, human beings, whom other human beings loved and needed.
Whenever any American life is take by another American unnecessarily, whether it is done in the name of the law or in defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence, whenever we tear at the fabric of a life, which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded."
My fellow citizens, we've allowed our one Maryland to be degraded by violence for far too long. One of our highest priorities this year will be to fight back against violent crime -- whenever and wherever it occurs in the State of Maryland. (Applause)
One year ago I shared with you, you may recall, how deeply concerned I was about how troubled so many of our departments that are involved in public safety were. Well, over the course of this year we have begun to make progress, we really have.
Working hard every single day to turn the situation around, so that our State gets back into the business of supporting local police departments and communities everywhere in our State in the fight against violent crime.
Over the course of this last year we closed the House of Correction and we opened a safer and more modern facility. (Applause)
We also overhauled, at long last, Parole & Probation and the way that they had in the past of figuring out who should be at the highest level of supervision. We are now in a much better position and have already zeroed in on the most violent predators with far more intensive supervision.
We have better diagnostic tools also in place at Juvenile Services, so that we can prevent violence, heal families, and prevent the loss of young lives to homicide.
We have created a Violence Prevention Unit at Parole & Probation to partner with local police and prosecutors so that we can legally and quickly remove the most violent offenders from our streets before they can murder again. (Applause)
We have also created two Regional Gun Task Forces with local governments, including our neighbors in the District of Columbia, to take guns off our streets. Thank you, Mayor Fenty, for helping us do that. (Applause)
Led by General Maynard and also by Colonel Sheriden, we are systematizing the collection, the analysis and the relaying of gang intelligence to local police departments so they can act on it to save lives.
And finally, last year we were able to knock out what had become a really shameful backlog of 24,000 DNA fingerprints, if you will, that had been taken from those convicted of violent crimes, but had never been analyzed by our State crime lab. Can you imagine that?
Cases are now being solved, I’m glad to tell you. They’re being solved, violence prevented, as Maryland finally makes better use of DNA fingerprinting and its potential to solve and prevent violent crimes.
And in the year ahead I want to ask for your support for several important things on this front. Number one, to add 50 additional officers to more closely and intensely supervise those who are released back into our communities on parole and probation.
Number two, to embark on a long overdue rebuilding of the minimal number of modern, regional facilities for our long, long ignored Juvenile Services system. (Applause)
Number three, to expand the utilization of modern GPS tracking technology so that we can save the lives of our most at-risk young offenders in some of our most challenged and violence-plagued neighborhoods, to save their lives and rescue them from the clutches of the hitmen and drug dealers.
Number four, I need your help to increase the availability of drug treatment programs, as well as community based programs like Operation Safe Kids. (Applause)
So that we can do a much better job of partnering with our county health departments in order to save young lives.
But most importantly I urge your support for legislation that is supported by virtually every police chief in every town and county in our State. It is supported by virtually every prosecutor, every State’s Attorney in the State of Maryland. And that is an expansion of our State’s DNA fingerprinting efforts so that we can solve more violent crimes more quickly and put murderers and rapists behind bars before they murder or rape again. (Applause)
If you look at the evolution of this technology, it follows almost exactly the evolution that happened after the advent of fingerprinting. Eleven other States now, including Virginia, collect DNA prints from those that are charged with violent crimes. And given the level of violence that we have in our State, there really is no justifiable reason that Maryland should not be in the forefront of using this modern crime solving tool, rather than lagging behind.
Protecting the Priorities of our People
Yes, to come through these tough times as quickly as possible, we must protect the priorities of our families. And we have tremendous challenges ahead of us.
On health care we need, in the coming year, to advance health care IT and to extend dental care for children so that no child in any county ever dies because of an inability to get dental treatment for a tooth ache. (Applause)
There are also thousands of Marylanders returning from service in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The modern day Maryland 400, if you will. And they were there for us. They went there for us, and we need to be there for them. And that’s why I ask for your support and engagement on a series of bills, that the Lt. Governor has also been working on, to ensure that their health and well-being is protected when they come home to Maryland. We owe that to them. (Applause)
On improving Maryland’s Homeland Security and preparedness many efforts are underway to better integrate emergency preparedness, emergency information sharing, and finally, to bring into service for the first time a truly statewide – that’s a small S on statewide -- a truly statewide system of interoperable communications so that all of our first responders will be able to talk to each other in the event of a large emergency.
I ask for your support as we bring former FEMA Director James Lee Witt, who I understand is with us today, to Maryland to assess our level of preparedness and make recommendations for making Maryland safer and better prepared in the face of natural and manmade threats.
On the health of the Bay, we have to continue to search for ways to make farming more profitable, we have to move as quickly as we can to upgrade our water treatment facilities and treatment plants. We also have to move quickly to fulfill our obligations with the District of Columbia and our other neighbors in the Bay watershed, importantly on this score, Pennsylvania and Virginia, in order to preserve and ultimately expand forest cover.
Last year you passed the Stormwater Management Act and you also passed the Clean Cars Act. This year I will ask for your support and for your ideas as we search for ways to update our Critical Area Law, so that massive developments like the Four Seasons project on Kent Island, are prohibited at the first step in the process and not at the last step. Right, Governor Hughes? (Applause)
On education we must find better ways to recruit great principals to our most challenged schools, to improve outcomes in science, technology and engineering and math. Right, Chancellor Kirwan?
And we must do a better job of listening to our teachers in a regular systematic way, so that we are constantly improving the learning process and improving the working conditions in our classrooms that are so very essential to recruiting and retaining the highest quality teachers we possibly can for our kids.
And we also have to rededicate ourselves to reducing our drop-out rate with better career and technical programs available to high schools in every district where kids want them. (Applause)
On workforce creation I also ask for your support on proposals that will reduce the nursing shortage that exists throughout our State, and on our broader efforts to equip the 750,000 chronically under-educated adults in Maryland with the skills that they need to compete and to win and to care for their families in this new economy. We can and we must do better on this score. Workforce is critically important to Maryland’s economic future. We have to build a new system for educating our adults and harnessing the potential of our entire workforce. Every single person matters.
There are Marylanders with disabilities who are talented and hardworking and want to get into the workforce with just a little bit of help and training.
Also, there are new Americans who remind us every day, in the words of Maryland’s Harriet Tubman, that we were all once strangers in a strange land. And they have brought their talents here to build a better Maryland.
We must also better align the education needs of our adults with the workforce needs of our employers and I urge you to support our proposal to bring our adult education system into the 21st Century. (Applause)
In terms of our pursuit of a more sustainable future for the land, the air, the water that we share, I urge your support for new legislation to promote transit-oriented development. (Applause)
I also look forward to working with you in the development of science, technology and public education that it will take to combat climate change and improve energy conservation and energy efficiency and to make Maryland a leader in the development of renewable energy and green building techniques of all kinds.
Our country needs us and we’ve got to be there in the forefront. (Applause)
And of course, in order to protect Maryland’s future, we must address Maryland’s energy needs.
The task before us, as you so well know, is to develop a long-term plan for energy generation, distribution, and conservation. And it will not be easy. It will take a sustained commitment from our political leadership to turn that vision over time into reality. The days of cheap abundant energy are past, but that does not mean that our only options are crippling energy bills and rolling brown-outs.
In the coming weeks, in the coming months, and in the coming years, we are going to be undertaking a number of efforts -- legislative, regulatory -- and, if need be, legal -- to secure fair and reasonable energy rates while also ensuring an adequate supply for our future. Deregulation has failed us in Maryland and we cannot allow our future to be determined by that mistake. We have to move forward. (Applause)
Conclusion
In conclusion, my friends, the most important days in life are not always the easy days.
As we work our way through the important and difficult days ahead, let’s not forget the good that God has given us in our lives, of our families, of our friends, of our neighbors, and all of the people in this State, where our diversity is our strength, that we call home, our fellow Marylanders.
Let’s stay focused on the fact that people are counting on us to make these tough times more bearable. Let’s work together -- regardless of personality, regardless of party or place -- to face the challenges ahead.
We know that Maryland is a stronger State than most. We can get through these tough economic times more quickly than other parts of our country, but only if we continue to come together to protect the priorities that make us strong.
We come here to make a positive difference for our neighbors; that’s why we come here. That’s what Senator Britt did and that’s what Delegate Lawton did. And that’s what we are going to continue to do. We must take it from here, Bishop Muse, striving to do all that we can for the working people we have the privilege to serve and the one Maryland we carry in our hearts.
God bless you all and thank you. (Applause)
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