David Morton’s “The Hard Cell” (6/20) is a compelling portrait of the lives of Rashann Howard and Gerald McNeill as they “do time” in the D.C. Jail. Morton does the community a service of pointing out, once again, the unsolved problems (particularly overcrowding) with the jail. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any forthcoming solutions to deal with the symptom of crime in D.C. by building an appropriate facility in or close to D.C.
Until Washingtonians, and our next-door neighbors in Maryland
and Virginia, move beyond their NIMBY predispositions, and the D.C. Department of Corrections is granted another site and gets more resources to hire more and better-trained correctional workers,
problems like those experienced by Howard and McNeill will undoubtedly persist.
Associate Professor
Division of Criminology, Criminal Justice,
and Social Policy
University of Baltimore