Stop O'Malley from spending $104 MILLION to build the Youth Detention Center

It is reasonable to ask about the effectiveness of increasing the use of detention as a crime control policy versus other policy alternatives. National studies show that youth who are sent to adult facilities go on to commit more—and more violent—crimes than those who received rehabilitative services in the juvenile system. This costs taxpayers much more in the long run. Automatically charging youth as adults has been politically popular. But the data shows that when their cases are individually considered, most cases in Baltimore are dismissed or
sent back to the juvenile system, raising the question of whether they should have been put in the adult system in the first place.

The Just Kids Partnership—formed by the Public Justice Center, Community Law In Action,
Inc., and United Parents of Incarcerated Children and Youth—spent a year conducting research, interviewing stakeholders, and following the cases of over 100 youth to understand and assess the impact of Maryland’s laws, policies and practices charging and prosecuting youth as adults. We urge Maryland policymakers to read the results of this research. Our communities deserve no less than thoughtful, data-driven policy rather than ill-informed and politically expedient rhetoric.

Despite being admonished 10 years ago by a legislatively-appointed commission to do so, the State still collects very little information on the outcomes of its treatment of youth who are charged as adults. To fill this data void, the Just Kids Partnership followed 135 individual cases of youth charged as adults in Baltimore City and found, among other things:

• 68% of youth charged as adults are either transferred back to the juvenile system or have their cases dismissed outright;

• A youth will spend almost 5 months in adult jail before he has a hearing to consider whether he should be sent to the juvenile system;

• Only 10% of the youth charged as adults actually receive sentences of time in adult prisons;

• Thirteen of the 135 study sample cases that began between January and June of 2009 have yet to be resolved as of August 2010, meaning those youth have been held in adult jail for at least 16 months without having been convicted of a crime. Meanwhile, they are not required to receive rehabilitative services or other crucial support while in adult jail.(www.justkidsmaryland.org)