Professor questions rising arrests of Black men under Mayor Scott, police funding grows

Tony Gaskew is pressing a question that cuts directly into Mayor Brandon M. Scott’s public-safety message: if homicides and shootings are falling, why are arrests of Black men and boys rising in a city that is 58.5% Black and has added $80 million to police funding?

Scott, elected on Nov. 3, 2020 and sworn in on Dec. 8, 2020, won reelection in 2024. His administration has leaned heavily on crime reduction as proof that the city’s strategy is working, but Gaskew, a professor of criminal justice and Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, is challenging the silence around who is being stopped, arrested and moved through the system.

That question matters in Baltimore because the city’s arrest data are publicly available through Open Baltimore and updated weekly, giving residents a way to track trends over time. The Baltimore Police Department also switched to NIBRS crime reporting effective Jan. 1, 2025, which makes careful year-to-year comparisons especially important when officials cite shifts in crime or enforcement.

On violence, the administration has numbers it can point to. The police department’s 2024 year-end report said homicides fell 23%, to 201 from 261, while non-fatal shootings dropped 34%, to 414 from 635. Its 2025 mid-year report said homicides were down 22%, to 68 from 88, and non-fatal shootings were down 19%, to 164 from 204. Those figures are central to Scott’s argument that his public-safety approach is producing results.

The budget picture has moved in the same direction. Baltimore’s adopted FY2026 budget totals $4.63 billion, up 9.98% from FY2025. The budget was signed into law on June 23, 2025 after passing the City Council 13-2 and took effect July 1, 2025. That broader spending plan includes the police increase now drawing scrutiny from critics who want to know whether public money is producing safer streets or simply more enforcement.

Gaskew’s concern lands in a city where enforcement disparities are politically and socially charged. Baltimore’s 2020 Census population was 585,708, and the city’s Black majority means arrest patterns are never just a policing issue. They shape trust in City Hall, the police department and the system that decides who is charged, who is released and who keeps carrying the burden of public safety.

Youth data add another layer. The Sentencing Project said Baltimore residents ages 10 to 17 make up about 8% of the population but roughly 5% of arrests so far in 2024, and 51 people under 18 were arrested in July 2024. The broader debate now is whether lower violence has come with a heavier enforcement load on Black residents, and whether City Hall is willing to measure both at once.