While she’s new to the role, Betsy Fox Tolentino is no stranger to the juvenile justice system.

On Monday, Governor Wes Moore appointed her acting secretary of the Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) amid growing concerns over troubling youth crime trends across the state.

After earning her law degree from Widener University, the attorney began her career in 2005 as a public defender. Then in 2011, she made the shift to juvenile advocacy, taking a job as DJS’ director of legislation, where she helped shape the agency’s legislative priorities. From there, she stayed with DJS for over a decade, rising in the ranks to deputy secretary of community operations, until 2022, when she left to manage juvenile justice initiatives at ROCA, a nonprofit working to reduce violence among high-risk youth.

The organization has received high praise from several state and city officials, such as former Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron, who called ROCA a critical partner in his crime-fighting efforts.

“I’ve known Betsy for the past decade,” Southeast Baltimore community activist Arch McKown said.

Arguing the change in leadership was long overdue, McKown also recalled past successes working directly with Fox Tolentino.

“We had a kid involved in a crew of armed robberies here and carjackings. ROCA was able to reach that kid and now they’re not out doing any of the stuff that they were doing anymore,” he said. “That was Betsy that helped coordinate that.”

Moving forward, McKown is hopeful she’ll continue to slow the revolving door of repeat offenders. Something, he said, her predecessor’s “catch and release policies” failed to do.

“The problem is, currently with the system, there’s really not a lot of accountability,” McKown said. “You have to have some consequences.”

However, during a presentation she gave in 2022, titled ‘Maryland’s Journey to Reduce Juvenile Detention’, Fox Tolentino echoed some of the same anti-incarceration policies championed by Vincent Schiraldi.

“Detention has a negative impact on community safety,” she said. “Does it get us anything good? What the research told us is, really, no. It really doesn’t.”

So, will DJS’ new leader bring change or more of the same?

The department said Fox Tolentino was not available for an interview on Tuesday. Instead, FOX45 sent the following questions to her office:

What is your top priority as the new head of DJS?

What did you think of Vincent Schiraldi’s work as DJS Secretary?

What, if anything, will you do differently from him?

Will you continue to push for community-based alternatives to incarceration? Why or why not?

What is your stance on automatically charging youth as adults and mandatory minimums for egregious offenses?

Do you think juvenile crime is currently out of control in Maryland?

As of the time this article was published, we have not heard back.

“I think that she’s different because I think that things like detention are not off the table with her, whereas Schiraldi, he’s written books about abolishing parole and probation,” McKown said. “The change was critical.”

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