Legislation to address youth crime sailed through the Maryland General Assembly this week, passing the House on Friday with a Senate vote expected Monday, signaling a clear path to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk.
Hailed by supporters as a measured response to rising rates of gun crimes and carjackings committed by children, the package drew vocal concerns from youth advocates over months of debate, with critics cautioning that the changes could harm recent legislative efforts to reverse what Moore (D) during his inaugural address called an “inexcusable fact”: that Maryland incarcerates Black youth at a higher rate than any other state in the nation.
While overall youth crime has been declining for more than a decade, state Democratic leaders heading into session said they had to act after a summer of high-profile incidents focused public attention on juvenile crime. A Baltimore shooting that killed two people and injured 28 others last summer, a spate of carjackings that has drawn substantial media scrutiny, and a case where a Baltimore teen found responsible for a rape charge was allowed to attend public school put pressure on lawmakers.
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The result was an effort to balance rehabilitation and accountability. The House and Senate bills, which contain minor differences, would institute new requirements to swiftly connect children to services while also extending the allowable length of probation and lowering the age at which the state can pursue criminal charges to 10 years old, less than two years after Maryland lawmakers set the minimum age for prosecution at 13 for most crimes. Roughly half of the states have age limits for prosecution, ranging from as low as 7 years old to 13, and many states set no minimum age.
“We’re going to find ways to change behavior,” Rep. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and was a key architect of the legislation, said on the House floor this week.
Moore has indicated an openness to reforming the state’s juvenile justice laws, and he stood beside Democratic leadership when the bills were introduced in January.
“Anything that makes it to my desk, it needs to have accountability at its heart,” Moore told reporters this week as the legislation advanced.
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On the House floor Wednesday and on the Senate floor Thursday, lawmakers deliberated over the right approach to address concerns without overly criminalizing children. Lawmakers in both chambers rejected amendments that would have allowed parents to waive their children’s right to speak to a lawyer before answering police questions.
Sen. Joanne C. Benson (D-Prince George’s) pressed for more accountability for the parents of children who get in trouble with the law. One of the Senate bill’s lead sponsors, Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), argued that accountability was at the heart of the bill, but noted that most of the bill focuses on what happens to children who get arrested and further defines the responsibilities law enforcement agencies have in connecting those juveniles to intervention measures.
“This whole thing is about accountability all throughout the system,” Smith said Thursday. “Let’s get real, the system is failing our children.”
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The legislation, which passed the House 126-6 and is scheduled to receive a vote in the Senate on Monday, would allow the Department of Juvenile Services to pursue charges against 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds — who were made exempt from criminal prosecution for all but the most violent crimes by reforms passed in 2022 — if they are accused of offenses involving guns, weapons, sexual assault or animal abuse; allow judges to extend probation periods in three-month intervals up to a total of two years for misdemeanors and four years for felonies, to better ensure that children complete any intervention or treatment programs required by the Department of Juvenile Services or the courts; allow children who have already been found responsible for prior offenses to be detained while awaiting trial; and require the department to forward cases involving some serious crimes on to the State’s Attorney for review if the department chooses not to pursue formal charges.
Despite changes to the original bill that assuaged some advocates’ concerns by putting the emphasis on diversion rather than detention, some opponents pushed back on the legislation as it advanced this week.
Maryland Public Defender Natasha M. Dartigue called it a “monumental step backward” after hard-won legislation passed in 2022 aimed at limiting the number of children ensnared in the criminal justice system.
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“The passage of HB814 offers only a charade of safety and is alarmingly reminiscent of the detrimental ‘tough on crime’ policies of the past,” Dartigue said in a statement after the bill was advanced earlier this week.
Juvenile offenses account for a small fraction of overall crime, and the number of children referred to juvenile court had been in significant decline in the years before the pandemic. And though the number of juvenile complaints processed by the Department of Juvenile Services increased in fiscal 2022 and 2023, the number of kids encountering the criminal justice system is still lower than before the pandemic.
Reform advocates also pointed out that the wider net cast by the bill would probably catch Black and Brown children accused of crimes at a disproportionate rate, furthering unjust outcomes in minority communities.
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“It is a proven fact that incarceration usually harms children more than it helps them,” Yanet Amanuel, director of public policy for the ACLU of Maryland, said in a statement.
Lawmakers also added a new provision to House Bill 814 that would require school boards to offer alternatives to public school to any person on the juvenile sex offender registry, which is not subject to public disclosure.
At a Judiciary Committee hearing, Clippinger said the amendment was introduced to address lawmaker concerns and public outcry over a case in Baltimore, where a 15-year-old entered a plea admitting to second-degree rape but continued to attend a public high school in the city, according to reports by Fox45 News. That case spurred Republican lawmakers in Annapolis to send a letter to the secretary of the Department of Juvenile Services, Vincent Schiraldi, who in reply declined to discuss a specific case for privacy reasons and explained in general terms how the department handles sex offense cases.
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The amendment in the bill would ensure that any juvenile who enters a plea admitting to a serious sexual offense, including first-, second- and third-degree rape, would be offered an alternative to attending public school.
“They are still children who need an education,” Clippinger said while describing the amendment at a committee hearing last week, “but the goal is to provide that education without putting anyone else at risk.”
A similar bill in the state Senate passed its second reading Thursday and will receive a final vote Monday evening. The bills would need to be reconciled before being sent to the governor’s desk.
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