Maryland
Contact Information
Advocates for Children and Youth (ACY)’s mission is to identify problems, promote policies and programs that improve results for Maryland’s children in measurable and meaningful ways and evaluate the effectiveness of programs and policies for the state’s children and youth.
Legislation
Bill Number: SB 856
Type of Reform
Study/Council on Juvenile Justice - This Act created the Juvenile Justice Reform Council (JJRC) to research and make a recommendation on how to mitigate the risk of youth coming into contact with the criminal and juvenile justice systems.
Year: 2019
Bill Number: HB 618
Type of Reform
Detention Reform - Mandated that district court with jurisdiction of an adult case of a child orders the child to be held in a juvenile facility prior to a hearing to transfer the case back to the juvenile system. There are several exemptions, accommodating for no capacity or security risks.
Year: 2015
Bill Number: SB 515
Type of Reform
Transfer Reform - Modified some of the requirements for “reverse waiver”, making it possible for some youth to go back to the juvenile court.
Year: 2014
Bill Number: HB 786
Type of Reform
Transfer Reform - Created a governor-appointed Task Force on Juvenile Court Jurisdiction to study practices which result in charging youth as adults by default, and consider whether to return discretion to the juvenile courts.
Year: 2013
Reports
Fact Check: A Survey of Available Data on Juvenile Crime in Baltimore City (2018)
For this report, the Abell Foundation collected and analyzed available data on juvenile crime, arrests, and outcomes in Baltimore City; this includes data on outcomes for children charged as an adult. It concludes that a more sophisticated and data-driven understanding of systemic challenges is needed both to protect public safety and improve outcomes for youth.
Youth Charged as Adults: Overview of Available Data (2015)
This document offers an overview and an analysis of the available data on youth charged as adults in the state of Maryland.
Report of the Task Force on Juvenile Court Jurisdiction (2013)
This is the report of a Task Force on Juvenile Court Jurisdiction, submitted by the Governor’s Office of Crime Control & Prevention. This group studied current laws, current research, and best practices in order to determine the best policies regarding children charged as adults in Maryland.
Department of Juvenile Services: Overview of the Youth Charged as Adults Population (2012)
This report from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) provides statistics on children charged as adults in Maryland and provides information on how DJS works to ensure that children charged as adults can be detained in juvenile facilities.
Just Kids: Baltimore’s Youth in the Adult Criminal Justice System (2010)
This report by the Just Kids Partnership provides evidence that the practice of transferring youth to the adult criminal justice system is unnecessary in Maryland. The Just Kids Partnership followed 135 individual cases of youth charged as adults in Baltimore city and found that nearly 68% of the youth awaiting trial in Baltimore's adult criminal justice system had their cases either sent to the juvenile court system or dismissed. Despite the high proportion of reverse transfer, on average, youth spent almost 5 months in adult jail before a hearing to consider whether the youth should be returned to the juvenile system. Only 10% of the youth tried in the adult system received sentences of time in adult prisons. Further, only 13 of the 135 cases in the study that began between January and June of 2009 had been resolved by August of 2010, indicating that 90% of the youth spent up to 16 months in adult facilities with no conviction and no mandatory rehabilitative services.