About the changes in juvenile justice laws that took effect Friday, some prosecutors, defense attorneys and justice reform advocates agree on one thing: The laws are likely to result in increased caseloads for the Department of Juvenile Services.

But whether that will have an effect on crime rates — or deter young offenders — is less clear.

Cases already have been rising in Baltimore, according to figures provided by the city State’s Attorney’s Office. In the first six months of 2024, 590 juvenile cases were charged, compared with 655 cases in all of 2023. And charged cases last year were nearly double the number from 2022 when 334 cases were charged.

“Crime reduction will only come by investing in our youth, providing immediate and impactful services for them to take advantage of, and holding them accountable for their actions,” Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun.

In May, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore signed into law a sweeping juvenile justice legislative package, reversing certain provisions in a 2022 law passed by the Democratic-led state legislature that weakened the role of prosecutors in pursuing charges for certain offenses committed by minors. The 2022 law gave DJS more authority to determine outcomes for youth offenders while relaxing potential punishments and supervisory guidelines.

The new law requires a juvenile’s case to be forwarded to a state’s attorney’s office within two days when DJS denies a police request to detain the juvenile, and it allows prosecutors to charge children as young as 10 for certain crimes involving handguns and firearms, third-degree sexual offenses or cruelty to animals.It also increases minimum probationary periods for some offenses and requires DJS to contact the juvenile court, local prosecutors, and the child’s defense attorney for certain violations committed while under electronic monitoring supervision.

Under the new law, children under 13 also must be automatically processed for Children in Need of Supervision protocol when they are accused of car theft.

Such protocols signal that a child might be in need of rehabilitative intervention. Opportunities for rehabilitative and diversionary services for younger children alleged to have committed car theft are outlined in the new law, which codifies a state-run program that targets help the youth most likely to be the victims or perpetrators of gun violence.

Bates, a Democrat, said he supports expediting the time frame for juveniles to enter the justice system so his office can swiftly contact victims and witnesses to put together strong cases that deliver certain consequences.

“The whole purpose of the juvenile system is rehabilitation,” Bates said in a televised interview with Sun co-owner Armstrong Williams last week. “You cannot have rehabilitation if young people are not held accountable and if young people are not given that opportunity with the juvenile justice system.”

A spokesperson for Howard County State’s Attorney Rich Gibson, a Democrat, said his office is hopeful the new legislation will improve communications between agencies and “establish a more comprehensive framework for accountability” within the juvenile justice system.”

Carroll County State’s Attorney Haven Shoemaker, a Republican, said he believes the new law will help deter adults from using children to commit crimes, which will result in an incremental reduction in youth offenses.

A longer probation period, Shoemaker said, should also help efforts to rehabilitate youth.

Baltimore-based defense attorney Jeremy Eldridge said the new law seeks to hold juveniles accountable for their actions.

“When they changed the law two years ago, certain age kids couldn’t be held accountable,” Eldridge said. “There was no mechanism for legal accountability for certain crimes. This [law] seeks to fill in the gaps that the prior bill created.”

He listed auto theft and robbery as the two main problems that he believes the new law will have an impact on.

But Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy, a Democrat, said the focus of the bill was never designed to result in charging more children.

“The focus of the bill was to address flaws within the juvenile justice system,” McCarthy said.

Kelly Quinn, a spokesperson for the Maryland Youth Justice Coalition, said the possibility of increased caseloads for juvenile offenders is a “real concern.”

“Putting kids in the system isn’t going to solve everyday people’s perceptions of crime,” Quinn said. “We will see more children and younger children, some as young as elementary school students, in the system.”

Instead of making more services available or improving services that exist, Quinn said the law wrongly focuses on consequences and procedures like sentencing guidelines and probation.

“The law will not reduce crime this week or this year,” Quinn, the managing director of The Choice Program, a youth and community program at UMBC, predicted. She said if the community expects to see a reduction in youth crime, there must be an increase of services and preventions put in place before youth interact with law enforcement agencies or land on DJS’ doorstep.

Quinn said there is one provision in the law that is promising: the codification of Thrive Academy.

“I am pleased that the legislature invested in a community-based program to help young people who are in danger of violence or retaliation,” Quinn said, adding that she is also looking forward to more police officers using Child in Need of Services (CINS) petitions to match youth, families, and services to support.

But Heather Warnken, executive director of the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform, who opposed the legislation, said she does not have confidence there will be a positive impact on children. She believes the new law is premature and could do more harm than good by bringing children into the juvenile justice system at younger ages.

“We’re really worried that this legislation not only undid what was a very intentional, deliberative and bipartisan process in recent juvenile justice changes that were only 2 years old but [that they] had not been given a chance to work,” she said.

Warnken said she disagrees with claims that pulling kids into the juvenile legal system in order to get them help is the most effective way to change behavior and address root causes.

“Investing in community-based services and supports, investing in kids and families surrounding their unmet needs, including around unaddressed trauma, is actually far more effective than relying on a punitive approach,” she said.

Warnken said entering the juvenile system can be a traumatic process for a child, especially when it involves the unnecessary incarceration of kids.

A spokesperson for DJS said the agency was committed to implementing the new law. However, they had no comment on how the law would play out or affect the community at large.

“The Department of Juvenile Services is committed to implementing [House Bill] 814 in partnership and collaboration with other agencies and stakeholders like police, public defenders, courts and States Attorneys Offices across the state of Maryland, working since passage of the legislation to train staff as well as those same stakeholders about new obligations under the law,” DJS said in a statement.

“We are committed to the shared mission of rehabilitating youth to keep Maryland safe, and are offering training and support to our stakeholder partners to ensure we are all acting together to accomplish the goal of keeping Maryland safe consistent with current law and the new law coming into effect.”

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