Breaking down DJS policies and changes coming to juvenile justice system this Friday

BALTIMORE — The Governor's Office wants to focus on the numbers, showing a statewide decline in young people committing certain crimes, like a 26% decline in decline in juvenile homicide arrests, and 46% decline in non-fatal shootings of juveniles.

And the Department of Juvenile Services secretary highlights the fact that the majority of children on GPS monitoring don’t re-offend.

"92% is not a bad record. It's just the 8% drives a lot of the conversation,” DJS Secretary Vincent Schiraldi told WMAR-2 News in a recent interview.

But when the anecdotes driving the conversation involve the sounds of a woman screaming for help while a group of kids try to rob her, as seen in Ring camera footage below, or videos like the one that went viral at the end of September, showing teenagers attacking a 66-year-old man in Butcher’s Hill while he was lying face-down in the street, people get angry.

A petition calling for Secretary Schiraldi to be fired has more than 3,000 signatures. The heads of 9 Baltimore City neighborhood associations sent a letter to Governor Moore demanding the same.

Meanwhile, a counter-letter expressing support for the Secretary and his policies was signed by 68 organizations and 152 individuals. Alice Wilkerson is the head of one of those organizations, called Advance Maryland.

"We're really concerned about the recent sensationalized media coverage surrounding a small number of high-profile cases that continue to drive harmful narratives about kids and we're very concerned that these narratives are going to result in reflexive, overly punitive, and really ineffective policy responses,” Wilkerson told WMAR-2 News.

She believes the juvenile justice changes passed during the 2024 legislative session, which takes effect Friday, are an example of this type of reactionary policy-making, and she is concerned there will be a “repeat.”

“What happens is when we are making policy changes, they are sweeping. They pull in large groups of kids into the net of the court system and what we do need is for the Department of Juvenile Services to be able to focus on these most important cases."

She points to DJS’s new Thrive Academy, which is set up to serve the most at-risk kids.

“This administration understands that what they should be doing is focusing on the handful of kids that are the most concerning, that might be coming back once, twice, or more. That is what the system is set up to do, is to provide services to those kids. But what happens is, we get distracted by these cases, and we say, we need laws to change this, and we actually end up increasing the caseload on DJS. DJS has more children in their custody now than they have in the past couple of years.”

Secretary Schiraldi echoed that point in his interview with WMAR-2 News two weeks ago.

“Folks feel like we’re being more lenient. Since the Governor was inaugurated, we have 20% more kids in custody than we did before he was inaugurated. So it’s actually kind of a myth that we’re being more lenient. And some categories of crime have come down. There’s been a 46% decline in arrests of young people for non-fatal shootings and a 26% decline in arrests of young people for homicides.”

“That means that there’s more kids that they have to provide services to, at a time when services and staffing is cut under the prior administration and the department has really been strained in being able to meet those needs. Those kids should be getting served in the community, while allowing the department to really focus on the kids that we’re all concerned about,” Wilkerson said.

Schiraldi took on his role less than a year after juvenile justice reforms went into effect in Maryland.

After criticism from lawmakers, prosecutors, and citizens, some of those changes will be rolled back, starting on Friday.

Most of the issues come up during two stages of the juvenile justice process: first, when children are brought into a DJS facility, and then, when children are placed on GPS monitoring. The former issue was highlighted in the fall of 2023 after the premature release of a 12 and 14-year-old who were arrested for assaulting and robbing a woman near Patterson Park, and again after the aforementioned Butcher's Hill assault of the 66-year-old man in the same neighborhood this September. The latter issue gained attention in the summer of 2023 after the gunman in the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting had an ankle monitor on, and more recently this month when a Howard County high school was arrested for murder while on GPS monitoring for attempted murder.

Here's how the intake process works now:

It's up to a DJS intake officer whether to send the child home, refer them to services, place them on an ankle monitor, or send the case to the local state's attorney's office.

If they're placed on an ankle monitor, Schiraldi explains, "they have to be seen by the judge the next day, and then the judge decides from then on whether that young person stays on the monitor, gets detained, or goes home."

It's also up to the intake officer whether or not the child should be detained. Even if their case is sent to the prosecutor, they still may get sent home while waiting for a hearing.

The intake officer uses a form that looks like this, giving a child points that add up to a score of either low-risk, moderate-risk, or high-risk based on a number of factors, including their criminal history.

"When you put a kid in a locked juvenile facility, that has impacts on them. It generally makes their recidivism worse, because they're surrounded by a bunch of other kids and they tend to reinforce bad behavior. So you're always trying to balance that and trying to forecast, is this kid gonna behave?" Schiraldi said.

Local state's attorneys have taken issue with how much discretion DJS is granted.

Under current law, DJS automatically has to forward all violent felony cases to the state's attorney's office for their review. But the new law taking effect Friday expands the types of cases that DJS has to immediately send to prosecutors, including any time that a child is already under DJS supervision.

It also tackles the issue of GPS monitoring violations, so there's hopefully fewer kids coming in with those ankle monitors already on.

Schiraldi explains the current system for notifying police about a GPS monitoring violation: “Our process is to call law enforcement right away and they put out an APB for the kid if they’re not home when they’re supposed to be on a monitor. Then we generally look for them for 24 hours or so and then if we haven’t found them or they haven’t come back, we call their parents, we call their phone, call their friends. If they haven’t come back by then, then we go to court and ask for a writ. That means next time law enforcement sees them, they’ll bring them in.” You can read more about the current policy and notification protocols here.

Starting Friday, they'll have to notify the court and state's attorney's office too, for any kind of GPS monitoring violation, within 24 hours.

"So it's more accountability, more of a system of checks and balances,” Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said in a September interview with WMAR-2 News.

DJS changed its internal policy this month too, after the Butcher's Hill assault, to require any child who commits a violent felony to automatically be placed on GPS monitoring, and any child who is already wearing a monitor when they commit a violent felony, to automatically be detained.

The new law taking effect on Nov. 1 also shortens the time DJS has to decide whether to pursue formal court action. It’s currently 25 business days, but the new law shortens that to 15. However, when law enforcement requests DJS detain a child, and the intake officer decides not to, DJS has two business days to conduct its inquiry into whether judicial action is needed. The goal is to expedite the process of getting an offender before a juvenile court.

“Then that young person will go before the judge, judicial magistrate. The magistrate will hear that information based on the officer’s request for that young person to be detained,” Bates explained.

The law also allows kids between 10 and 12 years old to be charged with certain crimes. Previously only kids above the age of 13 could be charged with most crimes, the most serious offenses serving as an exception for 10-12 year olds.

It also extends time limits for probation, depending on the severity of the crime committed. Wilkerson worries that change penalizes kids for “failures of the system.”

“The reason for that is kids were being put on probation, but the services weren’t available to the kids when they started, which really is a problem with the system. The kid’s not at fault for the fact that the services weren't available. But now we’re gonna make the kid stay on probation for a longer period of time,” she said.

Another change involves Child In Need of Supervision (CINS) petitions, which allow children to have court intervention without placing them in detention facilities. Under the new law, DJS is required to file a CINS petition for a child under the age of 13 who has stolen a car.

The law also establishes an oversight board called the “Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform and Emerging Best Practices.”

Governor Moore sent this statement on the issue of juvenile crime to WMAR-2 News:

"Since day one, Governor Moore has made a commitment to ensure the safety of all Marylanders which is reflected in the significant decrease Maryland has seen in overall homicide and non-fatal shooting rates.

Governor Moore knows everyone wants to ensure their family is safe. He understands the concerns that have been presented and believes that all of Maryland’s children deserve to grow up in a community they trust and in a home where they can thrive.

Over the past year, Governor Moore has made a concerted effort to both hold accountable and rehabilitate youth who are justice-involved. As a result, Maryland has seen a 26% decline in juvenile homicide arrests and 46% decline in non-fatal shootings of juveniles. Maryland is also continuing to hold bad actors accountable, the state has seen a 19.6% total increase in youth in custody.

These significant changes come after historic investments in public safety from the Moore-Miller Administration, including $119 million to local police departments across the state, $60.5 Million in funding to support victim services, and $268 million for community and residential operations to provide direct care services to youth under the Department of Juvenile Services’ supervision.

The governor is fully committed to working with local elected officials, law enforcement, the judiciary, and community leaders to improve public safety by holding youth accountable and rehabilitating them."