Probable cause? Baltimore Police are making fewer improper arrests, monitoring team finds

The number of Baltimore Police Department arrests lacking in “probable cause,” or a legally sound and properly documented reason to arrest someone, has dropped significantly in recent years, a recently released independent audit found. The findings came from the latest assessment by the Police Department’s independent monitoring team, part of its federal consent decree that dates back to 2017. The report, focused on arrests lacking probable cause, found that the rate of improper arrests dropped from 10.4% to 4% in two random samplings of 200 cases in 2019 and 2021.