ANNAPOLIS, Md. — It was a packed meeting for the house judiciary committee as juvenile crime filled the docket.
Speaker of the House, Adrienne Jones joined the chair of the Judiciary committee, Delegate Luke Clippinger to ask the committee to advance the bill.
It does face opposition, people say it will put more kids in the system which can lead to long term issues.
"Instead, what this does is arrest more young children and give them longer terms of probation and make it more likely they will be detained," said Joshua Rovner the director of youth justice at the Sentencing Project.
The bill would make a large amount of small changes.
Most notably, children ages 10 to 12 would be able to be charged for certain crimes. State's Attorneys would get notifications if kids aren't charged for certain crimes.
A commission will be created to study the best practices to treat juvenile crime. Probations would get extended.
It also holds the adults in the system accountable for not doing their jobs.
"If we don't provide those services to these children, they will end up back in the system. They will end up committing worse crimes every time," said Delegate Dalya Attar, a Democrat from Baltimore City.
Most of the people we talked to support some portions of the bill, but not all.
State's Attorneys want it to go farther, juvenile advocates say it's not the correct way to help children.
"I really want that commission to take place, if they can put some work groups together I'd stay here all night if they had to," said Rev. Dr. Marlon B. Tilghman.
"State's Attorneys always want more when it comes to fighting crime but I think it's a very good first step," said Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger.
With both the Senate President and the Speaker of the House behind the bill and the chair of its committees supporting it, the legislation has a strong chance to become law.
