Risk Assessment

Two-and-a-half months after being shaken by a currency trading scandal that resulted in a $691.2 million loss, Allfirst Financial Inc. said yesterday that the executive in charge of its risk assessment group will retire at the end of May. Brian L. King, 56, who has worked at Allfirst for more than 25 years, will leave to devote more time to charitable and other nonprofit organizations, the company announcement said. King, whose group oversees a number of areas, including internal audit, legal and credit review, did not return calls.

Changing a pretrial justice system challenges every principal player to do things differently. That's the situation Maryland's elected officials, judges, prosecutors, public defenders and pretrial investigators face as they encounter the most monumental transition in pretrial justice since the Supreme Court recognized a poor person's constitutional right to counsel in 1963. This fall the Maryland Court of Appeals issued a constitutional mandate that promised a public defender to poor people when their liberty is first at stake.

A panel of independent scientists has found flaws in the Army's planning to shield workers and the public from harm from a proposed biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick. The seven-member committee assembled by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the risk assessment being done by an Army contractor is "not sufficiently robust" to help design a facility that will reduce potential hazards. The $584 million, 492,000-square-foot Medical Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Facility would develop and test vaccines and drugs to prevent or treat infectious diseases.

Nearly half a million people crowding the nation's regional jails — two thirds of the jail population — are awaiting trial. Many of them are poor people of color incarcerated on non-violent, non-felony charges for an average of two weeks because they can't afford the price of freedom: the going bail rate for their alleged crime. For some, the time in lock-up means lost jobs and homes. Their children may have to move in with a non-parent, or their medical care may be interrupted.

In case you haven't noticed, it's gotten really dangerous out there. If SARS doesn't drop you, a terrorist might. Just ask Tom Ridge. Then there are weapons of mass destruction, genetically modified foods, pesticides, West Nile disease, plane crashes, suicide bombers, anthrax, child abductions and hurricanes named Isabel. The problem is, none of this is anywhere near as dangerous as we think. Humans are instinctively bad at risk assessment, and that failure is a serious threat to our personal well being and even our political future.

Nearly half a million people crowding the nation's regional jails — two thirds of the jail population — are awaiting trial. Many of them are poor people of color incarcerated on non-violent, non-felony charges for an average of two weeks because they can't afford the price of freedom: the going bail rate for their alleged crime. For some, the time in lock-up means lost jobs and homes. Their children may have to move in with a non-parent, or their medical care may be interrupted.

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.

Jumping into the debate on regulatory reform, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health yesterday launched an institute on risk intended to ensure that government rules protect people from real hazards without unduly burdening businesses.Hopkins officials unveiled their Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute at a news briefing in Baltimore, saying that government regulators too often have ignored scientists' advice.The institute is to be underwritten by a $1.85 million grant from CSX Corp.

Changing a pretrial justice system challenges every principal player to do things differently. That's the situation Maryland's elected officials, judges, prosecutors, public defenders and pretrial investigators face as they encounter the most monumental transition in pretrial justice since the Supreme Court recognized a poor person's constitutional right to counsel in 1963. This fall the Maryland Court of Appeals issued a constitutional mandate that promised a public defender to poor people when their liberty is first at stake.

A new environmental study has found people and wildlife face higher-than-normal health risks from long-term exposure to toxic contaminants in the Patapsco River near Sparrows Point, the legacy of pollution from more than a century of steel-making on the outskirts of Baltimore's harbor. The risk assessment commissioned by the Maryland Port Administration determined that people who swam their whole lifetime in the waters off the Coke Point area of Sparrows Point would be two to five times more likely to develop cancers or other health problems as people who did the same elsewhere in the harbor.

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.

It's Armed Forces Day dear readers. Saturday is also the running of the 137th Preakness, part of the Triple Crown. After the Kentucky Derby, now Maryland gets to shine. Lots of hoopla and black-eyed Susans will be the fare at the Pimlico Racetrack. Regretfully, Havre de Grace lost out of this and many other races, when the famous Havre de Grace Racetrack, nicknamed "The Graw" on Old Bay Lane, closed in 1950, and its races were transferred to Pimlico. Much of our ol' racetrack still stands on the grounds of the Maryland National Guard.

A panel of independent scientists has found flaws in the Army's planning to shield workers and the public from harm from a proposed biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick. The seven-member committee assembled by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the risk assessment being done by an Army contractor is "not sufficiently robust" to help design a facility that will reduce potential hazards. The $584 million, 492,000-square-foot Medical Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Facility would develop and test vaccines and drugs to prevent or treat infectious diseases.

A new environmental study has found people and wildlife face higher-than-normal health risks from long-term exposure to toxic contaminants in the Patapsco River near Sparrows Point, the legacy of pollution from more than a century of steel-making on the outskirts of Baltimore's harbor. The risk assessment commissioned by the Maryland Port Administration determined that people who swam their whole lifetime in the waters off the Coke Point area of Sparrows Point would be two to five times more likely to develop cancers or other health problems as people who did the same elsewhere in the harbor.

I had hoped that a video of a juvenile court hearing would help explain how a teenager with a long criminal record who had just been arrested in a drug bust could be sent home from a detention center only to be charged with killing a man two hours later in the front seat of a Buick Park Avenue. Unfortunately, what I saw not only fails to explain why state officials freed 17-year-old Maurice Brown, but it raises new questions about the case, while revealing proposed procedural changes that would make it easier for more young offenders to avoid detention.

When the Food and Drug Administration approved a new type of cholesterol-lowering medicine in 2002, it did so on the basis of a handful of clinical trials covering a total of 3,900 patients. None of the patients took the medicine for more than 12 weeks, and the trials offered no evidence that it had reduced heart attacks or cardiovascular disease, the goal of any cholesterol drug. The lack of evidence has not stopped doctors from heavily prescribing that drug, whether in a stand-alone form sold as Zetia or as a combination medicine called Vytorin.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The second space shuttle launch of 2006 is on track for Aug. 27 if NASA resolves a pair of technical issues as expected. Shuttle managers wrapped up a two-day flight readiness review yesterday with a decision to proceed with Atlantis' 11-day construction flight to the International Space Station. However, engineers continue to examine two issues. One involves bolts that secure an antenna to Atlantis. The other is a malfunctioning heater on another orbiter's hydraulics unit.

AS SOON as new convicts walk into Maryland's prisons, the state starts figuring out ways for them to walk out early. That's how Elmer Spencer Jr., a mentally retarded man with a history of sexually assaulting women and children, recently cut his 10-year sentence to four years. Five days after he walked out of the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown, he was rearrested -- charged this time with raping and killing a 9-year-old boy in Frederick. Maryland law invites this kind of travesty, because this is what it says: "An inmate shall be allowed a deduction in advance from the inmate's term of confinement, subject to the inmate's future good conduct."

With their minds on national incidents of schools breached by armed individuals, the members of the Carroll County school board have zeroed in on school security - and an action plan designed to increase it. Larry Faries, coordinator of school security, laid out the facts for board members during a work session on the issue. While schools in Baltimore City and Prince George's and Montgomery counties can rely on a number of staff members who are focused on security - more than 100 in Baltimore's school police department, and about 200 each for Prince George's and Montgomery - Carroll schools' staff and students have one person, Faries, assigned to protect them, he said.

Sometime during the early hours of Aug. 10, just after British authorities had arrested a group of people suspected of plotting to blow up several commercial airliners over the Atlantic Ocean, cell phones and laptops around the globe got an urgent message: "U.K. airports placed on critical alert Aug. 10 after discovery of alleged terror plot on U.S.-bound flights. No carry-on luggage allowed; flight delays likely." It was from iJET, an Annapolis intelligence firm hired by multinational companies to keep them apprised of troubles that could affect their globe-trotting employees or far-flung property or suppliers.