Data

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security now incarcerates, via immigration detention, more people per year than any other state or federal agency. In 2012, the DHS detained over 429,000 noncitizens awaiting immigration hearings or deportation, at a $2 billion cost to taxpayers. Yet the DHS' new risk assessment technology, which comprehensively and individually assesses immigrant detainees and collects valuable data, makes it possible for Congress to improve detention practices while reforming broader U.S. immigration laws.

Part data collectors, part tour guides — with a dash of personality for good measure — the 10 yellow navigational markers that make up the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System have been a hit with the public and weather forecasters since their launch in 2007. So much so that the American Meteorological Society singled out their creator, NOAA oceanographer Doug Wilson, at its annual meeting last month and presented him with one of its top awards. "I know he had a lot of help, but he saw the potential and ran with it. He was relentless," said Mark Bushnell, a Virginia meteorologist who nominated Wilson for the Francis W. Reichelderfer Award, given to a person who contributes to the public's understanding of science.

When reporters asked Baltimore police and state agencies where the guns used in city crimes came from, no one could provide specific information. "I can tell you that the vast majority, 95 percent plus, are committed with illegal guns," Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. But he didn't use data to support that widely held assumption. Local law enforcement agencies don't have that information because of a federal blockage of gun tracing data. Police also can't reveal what gun tracing data they do have because a federal law passed a decade ago shields most firearm tracking information from the public.

Baltimore County residents: Feel free to get nosy about your neighbors' property taxes. A new online database from The Baltimore Sun allows users to find the assessed value and the amount of tax paid for any Baltimore County home or commercial property . The database contains numbers from the tax year that ended June 30, 2012, and gives users multiple search options. In addition to looking up a property by address, users can search by the property owner's name, the assessed value, the tax amount or the credit amount.

An engineering study of the year-old Intercounty Connector has concluded that the speed limit on the highway between Gaithersburg and Laurel could be raised from 55 mph to 60 mph so long as an analysis of crash data finds no safety concerns. The accident review of the $2.5 billion all-electronic toll road is expected to be completed by the end of February, after which time the Maryland Transportation Authority will make a decision. "We said we wanted to have a year's worth of experience, and we've got that now," said Harold Bartlett, the authority's executive director.

For years, the right and left have been bickering in Maryland over whether or not people are coming or going, arguments that solved nothing, changed nothing and improved nothing. It's been a hot topic this year, with individual income tax hikes and proposals to raise the gasoline tax front and center on the policy agenda. The question is: At what point do high taxes drive people away to other states? "Virginia, here I come" is a popular refrain on social media posts on groups like Change Maryland's Facebook page, with 25,000 followers who have legitimate qualms about the state's relatively high corporate and individual income tax burdens.

The new system for measuring school progress announced by the Maryland State Department of Education this week is being touted as a great advance over the one it replaces. State officials say the School Progress Index aims to cut in half the percentage of students who fail to score proficient or better on standardized tests by 2017 and that it sets more realistic targets for what schools can achieve. Yet its complexity and the lack of transparency regarding how school performance is calculated are enough to raise questions about whether the new system really represents much of an improvement over the old. Maryland developed the School Progress Index in order to receive a federal waiver from the requirements of the Bush-era federal No Child Left Behind Act. Under that law, schools were judged to be failing if they didn't make "adequate yearly progress" in boosting test scores in reading and math, leading toward 100 percent proficiency in both subjects by 2014.

The new CEO and president of Belcamp-based SafeNet Inc. said Monday he intends to raise the profile of the data protection firm and “take SafeNet to the next level” by pursuing more commercial clients who are moving toward “cloud” computing. The company on Monday announced the appointment of Dave Hansen, the 48-year-old former CEO of Nomura Software and, since March, vice president and general manager of BMC Software, which had acquired Nomura. Hansen succeeds Chris Fedde, CEO since 2011, who will become a consultant to SafeNet, the company said.

Over months of investigating the proliferation of speed cameras in Maryland, many of The Baltimore Sun's attempts to get data and other information from government officials were met with delays, detours and dead ends. Howard County, for example, refused to provide the license tag numbers of the vehicles that its cameras have nailed for speeding. By contrast, Baltimore, Baltimore County and the State Highway Administration - which fall under the same public-records law that Howard does - all provided tag numbers, even if it took some prodding and multiple attempts to get the correct figures.

Baltimore County is set to consolidate its government data center with the school system's next year, which officials say will save up to $4 million in construction costs. The County Council on Monday unanimously approved a proposal by County Executive Kevin Kamenetz to merge the centers. Under the plan, the schools' Department of Technology data center - which has been leasing space in Timonium - will move to the county's data center at the courthouse in Towson by next August. County leaders say combining the centers will save the school system between $2 million and $4 million in construction costs for a new building, plus $100,000 annually in maintenance expenses.