The Maryland State House steps. File photo by Bryan Sears.
Children as young as 10 can be referred to the juvenile justice system for an expanded list of nonviolent crimes under a comprehensive and controversial juvenile justice law that takes effect Friday.
Besides exposing 10- to 12-year-olds to Department of Juvenile Services supervision — previously 13 was the cutoff age — the law requires that any child charged with motor vehicle theft get a Children in Need of Supervision petition, or CINS petition.
While the CINS petition had not been mandatory before, filing one now will also qualify the youth and the youth’s family for a variety of services.
The law has divided advocates and lawmakers between those who say it closes loopholes in the system and brings greater accountability to the process, and those who say it criminalizes and traumatizes the youngest children with no corresponding gain in public safety.
Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue said in an email Thursday that the new law “is a major step back” for children.
“By increasing detention for lower level non-violent misdemeanors and expanding the criminalization of children under the age of 13, Maryland is subjecting more children, particularly children of color from marginalized communities, to the harms of detention and the trauma of the criminal legal system while achieving no true public safety benefit,” Dartigue wrote.
“It has been proven that therapeutic and rehabilitative services have both short- and long-term benefits for the child, the victim and the community. All of which can be achieved without the trauma or negative impact of incarceration,” she wrote.
But backers of the new law say it was needed to respond to public fears of carjackings, among other crimes, by youth. They also said it was needed to fix parts of the Juvenile Justice Reform law of 2022 that said children younger than 13 “may not be charged with a crime,” unless it’s a violent offense.
Under that law, “All the police could do is sort of wag their finger at them (youth) and say, ‘No, no, no’ and send them home. Then the next afternoon they would be out in the street committing more crimes,” said Sen. Chris West (R-Baltimore County).
“The public defender and some of the people who were opposed to it were predicting the end of the world if it passed,” said West, a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, who voted for the new law. “I don’t think we’re going to find that’s the case.”
Besides lowering the age for DJS referrals, the law expands covered crimes to include crimes such as aggravated animal cruelty or third-degree sex offense. A youth charged with one of those crimes will now have documentation sent to juvenile court and fall under the jurisdiction of DJS.
Local state’s attorneys can review complaints and case files of children charged with a crime who are under juvenile services supervision. But Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger (D) said Wednesday that juvenile records are not made public and do not follow a youth, unless the child is charged as an adult.
“My review of the entire package, I believe, will do a better job of treating the juveniles and trying to get them help. Not only them, but their families,” said Shellenberger. He added that the law can help youth receive support sooner and not be prosecuted “when they’re 17 and commit a more heinous crime.”
Despite the fears of increased youth crime that spurred the new law, DJS Secretary Vincent Schiraldi said in an interview last week there has been a 26% decrease in juvenile homicide arrests this year compared to the same time last year. In addition, he said 94% of youth who are detained using electronic monitors don’t get arrested.
Critics of the new law, including criminal justice and civil rights advocates, maintain that the juvenile justice measure passed two years ago was not given enough time to take effect before the new law was pushed through. In addition, they ask: Where’s the data?
“The laws that we pass today are going to give us results years down the road. We don’t even have the data … to know if those passed laws have been effective,” said Alice Wilkerson, executive director with Advance Maryland, a nonprofit organization that assists other groups with advocacy efforts.
Before rushing new laws through, she said, officials need “patience because we have to look at the data so that we are making good decisions based the evidence and not based on fear-based responses to the news story of the moment.”
Juvenile justice commission
One part of the law that took effect this summer called for the creation of a Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform and Emerging and Best Practices to assess the state’s juvenile justice system. While the commission was authorized on June 1, it is only now about to begin.
Four lawmakers on the committee — Sens. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) and Nick Charles (D-Prince George’s) and Dels. J. Sandy Bartlett (D-Anne Arundel) and N. Scott Phillips (D-Baltimore County) — were named months ago. The remaining 22 members were finally named Thursday by Gov. Wes Moore, who said the panel will be holding its first meeting Nov. 6 — the day after Election Day.
Some of the other members of the 26-member panel include Schiraldi; Donna Christy, president of Prince George’s County Educators’ Association; Nathaniel Balis, director of the Juvenile Justice Strategy Group at the Annie E. Casey Foundation; and Caroline County Sheriff Donald Baker Jr.
Part of the panel’s responsibilities include evaluating cost-effectiveness of existing and “promising” programs throughout the state, recommending policies and programs to improve juvenile services and identifying opportunities for “greater coordination” between DJS, state’s attorney’s offices, law enforcement and local organizations that provide services to juveniles.
Commission member Aubrey Edwards-Luce, executive director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law, is concerned about part of the law that extends the probationary period for youth offenders, from six months to a year for misdemeanors and from one year to two for felonies.
“There’s ways to do that through policy changes that don’t require extending the amount of time that children’s lives are under a microscope, and our systems are just kind of waiting to catch them doing something incorrectly,” she said Thursday. “If you’re still experiencing consequences for something that you did a year and a half ago because you’ve been on probation, the lesson that we’re wanting them to learn is completely not happening.”
One goal Edwards-Luce hopes can be achieved is finding a way to decrease this number: 80% of youth charged as adults in Maryland are people of color. She said the commission should work to transform the system “so that we’re advancing equity and fairness, especially for those community members who are disproportionately pulled into and penalized by our justice system.”
“I’m really hopeful that as we start thinking through as a commission … that we will include time to think about equity and making sure that those places, those decision points in the system as we have it now, that are contributing to disproportionality are addressed,” she said.
Andre Davis, a retired judge of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will serve as chair of the commission. He said in an interview Thursday that the first meeting will be held at the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy in Crownsville at 3 p.m. Wednesday.
“I expect that the work product will be a work product that people can rally around, embrace, and we can improve the system for the children in this state,” said Davis, who is also a retired Baltimore City solicitor.
He offered some advice for residents who fear there’s an increase in crime where they live.
“Pay very close attention to the work of the commission,” he said. “It’s a process of educating all of the stakeholders about what is best for the community regarding safety and what is best for the children that we all love and care about.”