Maryland, My Maryland

 Jazz Shaw at Hat Hair reports Maryland Finally Passes Juvenile Crime Legislation

After a lengthy period of work and debate, the General Assembly signed off on a new "juvenile justice bill" yesterday and sent it to Democratic Governor Wes Moore for approval. Curiously, it was the Democrats in Baltimore who were pushing back against it the most vigorously, despite arguably being in the most need of such changes. Under this measure, more will allegedly be done to deal with crimes committed by youths. As always, however, the devil is in the details. (Baltimore Sun)

The Maryland General Assembly gave final approval to its high-priority, multi-pronged juvenile justice bill Friday, officially passing it to Gov. Wes Moore for consideration.

“There’s a crime perception problem,” said Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair Will Smith. “The components of this bill are a significant part of affording accountability and transparency in the entire process.”

The bill, ushered through the Senate by Smith, and in the House by Judiciary Committee Chair Luke Clippinger — both of whom are Democrats — seeks to quell constituent calls about increased instances of carjackings, car thefts and firearms charges among Maryland youth.

As suggested above, the bill passed in both the Assembly and the State Senate by overwhelming margins, with the only no votes coming from representatives from Baltimore. They amazingly claimed that the bill was "the product of a lot of media-driven panic.” Opponents argued that people are "lying about juvenile crime rates" and said they were fighting against "the perception of a crime problem."

That's an indication of the huge hurdles that Maryland lawmakers have to overcome, particularly when trying to deal with juvenile crime issues. They don't have a "perception of a crime problem." They have an actual crime problem. Rates of carjackings and weapons crimes are up, with juvenile offenders almost always being immediately put back out on the streets with little to no intervention or records being kept to monitor repeat offenders.
 
This bill appears to at least partially address some of those issues. Under the new law, 13 and 14-year-olds can more easily be held in detention while awaiting trial for more serious crimes. Even children of ten and eleven will be able to be detained on the most serious charges if they are repeat offenders. Each juvenile arrest will require the filing of a permanent record and the expansion of a database so those records can be checked following subsequent arrests.

It is significant that the push back came from Baltimore representatives, where the youth crime problem is most severe, although I'm kind of surprised that PG County didn't get a mention as well.

There is some danger in going to far, but it is important to rein in the free-range criminal youth, Baltimore be damned.