A new report says 6% of inmates in Maryland prisons were locked up as adults for crimes they committed as minors. Getty Images.
Maryland ranks among the worst states in the country when it comes to the number of inmates who began their time behind bars for crimes they committed as children, according to a report set to be released Wednesday.
With 6% of its total prison population incarcerated for crimes they committed as minors, Maryland ranked behind only Louisiana, Wisconsin and South Carolina, according to the report “Disposable Children: The Prevalence of Child Abuse and Trauma Among Children Prosecuted and Incarcerated as Adults in Maryland.”
According to the Human Rights for Kids report, Maryland also fared poorly in terms of the number of children per capita prosecuted as adults, trailing only Alabama. According to the report, minority inmates make up more than 90% of those charged as juveniles in Maryland and remain incarcerated as adults.
“Maryland faces a simple choice. On the one hand, the state can look the other way and continue to incarcerate children who behave behaviorally as a result of abuse, neglect, and community violence, or the state can attempt to address the root of the problem by to show children something that many of them have. never had before – love,” the report said.
The document is based on the nonprofit’s first national survey of Maryland prisoners about the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) they were exposed to as youth. The survey was sent to 882 people currently in Maryland’s adult prisons who have been incarcerated since childhood. About 124 people, or 14%, completed the surveys.
A graph shows the range of negative childhood experiences suffered by those currently incarcerated in Maryland prisons and sentenced as children. Chart courtesy of Human Rights for Kids.
About 70% of respondents acknowledged suffering in the top six of these experiences: separation/divorce from parents; domestic substance abuse; emotional abuse; physical abuse; incarceration of a parent, sibling, or anyone else in the household; and emotional neglect.
The report offers several policy and procedural recommendations, including a ban on solitary confinement of children in all facilities. Nearly 98% of respondents to the Maryland survey said they had been placed in solitary confinement, and about 80% of them said it happened when they were children.
Del. Sandy Bartlett (D-Anne Arundel), the vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee, sponsored unsuccessful legislation during this year’s session to limit solitary confinement or restrictive housing for youth, which is “done solely for the purpose of discipline, punishment, administrative convenience, retaliation or understaffing.”
Bartlett said in a text message Tuesday that she is working with the state Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) on a version of that bill for the 2025 legislative session.
“My goal is to get children out of adult provisional facilities,” she said.
Sen. Mary Beth Carozza (R-Lower Shore), ranking member of the Senate Education, Energy and Environment Committee, said the Legislature has “made some progress” in passing the Juvenile Justice Act that took effect Nov. 1. declined to comment on the report without seeing it first, but said more youth reforms need to be done that include not only rehabilitation but also accountability.
During the legislative session that begins Jan. 8, Carozza said she plans to again sponsor, or at least support, legislation she introduced last session that would let a law enforcement officer interrogate a juvenile for an alleged crime involved the use of a firearm. or violent crime. The Child Protection Custody Act passed in 2022 does not allow an officer to question a child until an attorney is retained by a parent or the public defender’s office.
“I realize that the whole issue of interrogating young people is a ban at this point, but I still think we need to … take another look at this very narrow approach,” Carozza said. “If anything, it still opens up other conversations about what you can do with young people’s responsibility.”
Policy, procedure recommendations
One bipartisan measure that passed Human Rights for Kids was legislation sponsored last session by Senators William G. Folden (R-Frederick) and Del. Karen Simpson (D-Frederick). Their bills, which did not make it out of committee, sought to transfer cases from adult court to juvenile court for child victims of sex crimes and human trafficking who commit crimes against their abusers but are convicted as adults.
Some other proposals in the report include:
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Prohibiting the housing of children in adult prisons;
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Allowing formerly incarcerated children to be released from parole no earlier than five years after their release;
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and starting all cases involving children in juvenile court.
The report also suggests that lawmakers provide training on adverse childhood experiences. More specifically, it said ACE training should be required for judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and other staff dealing with youth with “extensive trauma histories.”
The law in Virginia, where Jamel Freeman grew up, requires courts to consider a young person’s childhood experiences and trauma history.
“The courts need to know that,” said Freeman, now 46, a member of the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative that was founded to eliminate mass incarceration in the state.
He said it’s important to remember that children react differently than adults.
“When a child has an adverse experience that the body has and releases hormones that leave the brain in a heightened state of anxiety and stress, the shift in their cognitive, emotional and functioning behavioral actions begins to diminish,” says Freeman, a graduate student . at the University of Maryland-Baltimore School of Social Work. ‘Then their [children’s] skills that were once common are being replaced by the skills needed to survive.”
