What is the state of juvenile delinquency in Maryland, and perhaps more importantly, how should one gauge the success (or lack thereof) of efforts to reduce it? While many progressives including Maryland Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent Schiraldi tout numbers that show juvenile crime is down, others in law enforcement offer a different perspective. Yet a report released last month by the Maryland General Assembly’s Department of Legislative Services raises an even more important question: Is DJS dealing with juvenile offenders in a manner likely to keep them on the straight and narrow, producing a beneficial outcome for them and for their communities?

That the number of complaints of juvenile offenders has gone down in Maryland isn’t seriously in dispute, at least not the long term. DJS averages about 1,000 intakes per month but a decade ago, it was closer to 3,000, as noted in the Dec. 16 DLS report. Yet in the last four years post-COVID-19, there has also been a rise in the caseload, especially in violent crime and auto thefts. And, wait, it also gets even more complicated.

There are also deep concerns expressed — by the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office and others — that a 2022 change in state law convoluted the intake process and allowed for certain offenders to slip through the cracks and not be held accountable for their actions. That, in turn, caused lawmakers last year to revisit some of those reforms in an effort to increase accountability. The obvious danger here is that this muddled view of what’s going on, this mix of positive and negative trends, will be seen only through a political prism. No doubt people living in neighborhoods where juvenile crime rates have risen appreciably since 2021 would like all the intervention government has to offer from the police on the street to DJS community-based service providers. Yet what works and what does not?

There is often an assumption that the more often young offenders are treated as adults the less likely they are to reoffend. Such is the impact of harsh treatment. Yet, if so, why hasn’t that worked in the past?

Yet progressives too often assume that minors assigned to community-based service providers are destined for success. That’s certainly not always true and such a sweeping assumption ignores the wide range of services and oversight that can be provided from residential placement with intensive behavioral health care to simply requiring youngsters to show up at a “reporting center” once a day. Key to any DJS placement is to make a risk assessment. How likely is a young offender to return to criminal behavior? The agency considers many factors.

Are parents involved? How truly serious were the offenses? Is there a history of violence in the home? And on. Yet, as the DLS report concludes, the agency has precious little evaluation of how well the various contractors do their jobs. Does Community-based Provider A succeed at rehabilitating offenders at a greater rate than Community-based Provider B? That’s not at all clear.

Forget the dispute over juvenile crime arrests, what’s needed more than ever is a better statistical analysis of what happens to the young offenders who are already in the system. Are vendors doing a good job? Are placements appropriate? Is DJS really deterring crime? Arrest records can’t tell that story. We need to know more.