Oscar and Dez have likely never crossed paths, but have a lot in common.
They both value family deeply. They both admit they got involved with the wrong crowd.
They were also both arrested at the age of 17 in Maryland, for charges that automatically started them in the adult system.
And they've both since moved out of the state.
This story, however, will highlight the two very different paths they took through the judicial system.
Editor's note: For the purposes of privacy and security, we are not using either's last names.
Oscar's Story
Oscar, like many teenagers, wasn't a fan of high school.
"I didn't want to study anymore, I just wanted to work," says Oscar.
He dropped out of school at 14, to start working at a family company.
"My mother was fighting with me to stay in school and study, do something different, but I didn't want to," he says.
He'd been hanging out with some friends when he was arrested at 17 years old. His aunt had called him earlier in the day, and asked him not to go out.
"She felt like something was going to happen that day," he recalled.
The charges that the police decided to bring meant he would automatically start in the adult system.
"When I got detained," says Oscar, "the officers told me I was going to be charged as an adult. I didn't understand what they were talking about."
It wasn't until a public defender picked up his case and sat Oscar down to explain it to him that he had a sense of what was happening and that they were going to try to transfer him down to the juvenile system, in what's called a waiver hearing.
"I was there for nine months waiting for my waiver hearing," he says.
"All those nine months was a waste of time."
After two months sitting in a Youth Detention Center, run by the adult system DPSCS, Oscar says he felt he'd learned his lesson.
"Two months.. two months I was in there and I'm like, man, what did I do? Why? Why did I have to do what I do?" he says.
"That's all I needed," he added.
But he sat for another 7 months waiting for his transfer hearing, where members of the community came to speak to his character.
The judge granted the waiver - not an uncommon occurrence.
"It's my understanding that close to 75%, if not 80% [of cases in which a child was charged as an adult] ended up back down in juvenile court, or having the charges dismissed," says Jenny Egan with the Office of the Public Defender.
"Then I got waived down to the juvenile system and I was happy," says Oscar.
His case outcome included his placement at Victor Cullen, though it took three months before he was actually transferred there.
"I was in there like four and half months," he told us. "I completed that program quick because I did a drug program, therapy program, psychology program."
He described the routine he followed for those months, which included studying for his GED.
"If you [haven't graduated] you gotta go to school," says Oscar. And if you're "a dropout, you got the chance to do your GED."
He was on home monitoring and probation following his completion of the program.
We asked him if he felt the programs helped him.
"I could say yes and I could say no, because therapy was never my plan. I only completed the therapy there because they forced me to do therapy, but.. I don't like it. But other times it definitely [helped] because they gave me an opportunity to graduate from high school, get my GED."
He's now working as a handyman.
"If my case hadn't been transferred to the juvenile court? Yeah, oh, it would have been bad," he says.
Which brings us to Dez.
Dez's Story
Dez's mom, Serene, describes her son as 'quirky.'
"He's just him. Like, he is funny, he loves anime.. a lot... He loves animals, plants, he wants to study botany," she says.
Dez describes himself in a similar way.
"I was that kid that literally was looked at differently," he says. "I was a kid that got off the bike and picked up a dandelion."
He had some trouble fitting in.
"I had to kind of be a chameleon, adapt to my surroundings in a way," says Dez.
"That ended up getting me in a lot of trouble."
One afternoon, when Dez was 17, his mom got a call from the police.
"He was looking for my son... and I was like, well, what is this in regards to? And he's like well, he's being charged as an adult," says Serene. "So now, I'm frantic."
"I didn't get my rights read," recalls Dez of his arrest.
It also took hours for him in the initial detention area to get his phone call.
Scared, cold and confused, he finally was able to call is mom at 3 a.m.
"'Mom, I can't do this,'" he recalls telling her.
"He just kept saying 'Mommy, I don't know what's happening,'" remembers Serene.
"And apparently the people on the phone that listens to the calls heard me say, 'I can't do this' and took it as a suicidal threat," says Dez.
"The next thing I know, I couldn't talk to him again," Serene says. "I was trying to get information, I'm calling down to the jail, I get a message saying that he's on a 92 hour suicide watch where he's in a room by himself and he can't talk to anybody."
Dez thinks it was an overreaction.
"I'm like a kid, I'm literally just talking to my mommy."
Following suicide watch, he was moved to a tier of the jail with other teens, charged as adults. There were no education or therapy requirements there.
His time in prison, while brief, was hard for him and when the prosecution offered him a plea deal that would allow him to go home, he took it.
"When they offered him this plea, they kind of positioned it like, well, we'll offer you this plea of no jail time IF you agree to not accept a juvenile transfer," his mom says. "And to a child who just experienced everything that they experienced.. all he hears is 'I can go home.'"
He spent some time on house arrest following his plea.
Because his plea was in the adult system, he has an adult record.
"That plea deal is still haunting me to this day," says Dez.
"A stable income is literally not in my lifestyle right now."
Serene says had he started out in the juvenile system, things might be different.
"I feel he would have had more opportunities," she says. "They feel like okay, we did what we could and he'll be fine, but in all actuality, he's not fine."
SB93/HB96 - The YES Act
Some oppose the measure, pointing to cases of truly horrendous crimes that have been committed by kids under 18 years old.
However, proponents of the bill argue that too many kids, like Oscar, are stuck waiting for months for waiver hearings when their sentence might be less time than the wait.
Many kids, like Dez, feel they need to take an adult plea so that they can go home, just to be left with the devastating consequences.
And many others have their cases dismissed altogether.
Jenny Egan, an advocate for the bill and a public defender for youth, testified at the Judicial Proceedings Committee bill hearing for SB93.
"Starting them in a juvenile court allows prosecutors to focus those resources on the most egregious circumstances and the most egregious cases," she says. "Nothing in this bill keeps a prosecutor from waiving a child [up] to an adult court."