Maryland Needs More Community-Based Alternatives to Juvenile Detention, Not Less

Photo credits: Kahara via Unsplash

When I toured the Evening Reporting Center (ERC) run by Pride Youth Services (PYS) in Rockville last year, their CEO, Ludley Howard, told us, “We are each other’s keeper.” That spirit was evident in the inviting space that PYS had created and the staff’s rapport with the young people there. ERCs are a community-based alternative to confinement—both prior to and after trial—for youth in the juvenile justice system. Until it lost funding last summer, Pride Youth Services supervised youths from when they left school until early evening—a time when many young people are otherwise unsupervised.

Montgomery County prosecutors and defense attorneys alike have praised PYS for going the extra mile—literally—to help kids succeed: Every weekday a PYS van traveled the county picking up participants after school no matter where they were. Each youth received an action plan that could include programs such as anger management, mindfulness, substance recovery, tutoring, and formal therapy. PYS also hosted a monthly family engagement night to celebrate youths who were graduating from the program. Although most kids completed the program within three months, they built such strong relationships with staff that some returned voluntarily for academic and emotional support even after they graduated.

DJS abruptly ended funding to this ERC on July 1st, along with three of the seven other ERCs in the state. “The system left the kids hanging,” a PYS representative recalled. It is unclear what, if any, services were provided in place of the ERC, or whether the remaining ERCs are still functioning at full capacity. In Prince George’s County, for example, the ERC is now offering mainly virtual programming rather than in-person care.

A DJS spokesperson said the agency has plans for replacement services, which should be announced soon. But it has already been four months since the ERCs were closed. And the unanswered question remains: Why were these ERCs defunded? Sources in Montgomery County said DJS told them they had to make budget cuts. But without any written analysis to substantiate this claim, it remains inconclusive.

What is clear is that Maryland needs robust services both to keep youth from entering the front door of the system (“deflection”) and to divert them to community-based alternatives that research shows are more successful at helping kids and are more cost efficient.

These closures are a huge loss. Locking kids up is harmful to them, expensive, and ineffective. The Sentencing Project, in its report “Effective Alternatives to Youth Incarceration,” has documented how incarceration damages young people’s physical and mental health; disrupts education; hampers employment; and does not reduce delinquent behavior.¹ In fact, spending time in detention can increase the likelihood of subsequent arrest.

ERCs have a track record of working successfully with kids for a fraction of the cost of detention. The National Association of Counties (NACo) calculates that detaining a young person can be four times more expensive than serving them at an Evening Reporting Center.² West Baltimore’s Pre-Adjudication Coordination and Training (PACT) Evening Reporting Center reported excellent results with youth in their care. “For the past ten years an average of 96 percent of PACT participants appeared in court as scheduled, and 97 percent were not re-arrested while waiting for their court date, ” the Mayor’s office wrote in 2017.³ “I was angry because of my arrest, and the PACT program helped me to get rid of all that anger,” one former PACT ERC participant recalled. “Mr. [Jonathan] Hamlet [a PACT Supervisor] also helped me sort through the things I wanted to do in my life and he encouraged me to follow my dreams. Each day he reminded us to look at the big picture.”

Many Maryland counties already lack sufficient community-based alternatives to detention. More are needed in Maryland, not less. Cutting the ERCs may be pennywise and pound foolish. We also need good oversight of these programs to ensure that they are not creating unnecessary supervision of youth but providing a needed service so that youth can stay safely and productively in their communities. With proper management and oversight, community-based programs can most effectively assist young people and, in turn, help to keep our communities safe by reducing reoffending.

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Melissa Coretz Goemann is an attorney and social justice advocate who has held leadership roles in non-profit organizations in the mid-Atlantic region focused on youth legal system reform as well as other civil rights issues for the past two decades. She currently provides consultant services to Next Generation Justice Consulting, a policy consulting firm specializing in social justice advocacy and transformative systems change.

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1 June 28, 2023. https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/effective-alternatives-to-youth-incarceration/

2 Juvenile Detention Reform: A Guide for County Officials; Community Services Division, National Association of Counties (NACo), 2011. https://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/documents/JuvDetentionReform-2011.pdf

3 “YO Baltimore’s Pre-Adjudication Coordination and Training (PACT) Evening Reporting Center turns 10 years old”, Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, July 31 2017. https://moed.baltimorecity.gov/news/press-releases/2017-07-31-yo-baltimore%E2%80%99s-pre-adjudication-coordination-and-training-pact