Maryland too often treats youth criminal cases in adult court, write the authors, who say that harms the youth and doesn’t help society in the long run. (Getty stock image)
After more than a decade of legislative effort to curb the number of kids tried in adult court, Maryland is suddenly facing pressure from political and prosecutorial voices to expand laws automatically treating youths accused of crime as if they were grown ups. At the same time, Vincent Schiraldi — a nationally respected, data-driven leader — stepped down from his post as secretary of the state’s Department of Juvenile Services, declaring he would no longer be complicit in this practice that harms young people.
These two developments are not isolated; they reflect a troubling retreat from evidence and a dangerous reversion to the counterproductive fear-based policymaking of the 1990s…