In adult jails across Maryland, minors spend up to 23 hours a day in isolation, go without schooling, and in some cases avoid showering for fear of being raped. Some are also forced to spend more than a year in adult jail before a judge considers their case.
There are federal standards to protect youth from conditions like these. But in recent years Maryland has violated the criteria more frequently than any other state. The failures are so numerous that the federal government has characterized Maryland as an “outlier” and removed it from a national analysis assessing compliance.
Maryland law requires minors as young as 14 to be charged as adults for certain crimes, and most go to an adult jail when they are arrested…