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Dwayne Betts grew up in Maryland. At age 16, he was arrested in Virginia for a carjacking charge. He confessed, and he was sentenced to years in prison. At sentencing, his judge said, “I am under no illusion that sending you to prison will help.” Indeed, research that shows treating youth as adults harms public safety by increasing recidivism and future criminal behavior.

Mr. Betts’ example underscores that these problems are not unique to Maryland, but we have a larger problem on our hands than most of the nation does. A later witness from The Sentencing Project presented us with a devastating statistic: only Alabama automatically sends more of its kids (on a per-capita basis) into adult courts than does Maryland, and our statistics are so incomplete that we might actually rank 50th, not 49th.

We can and should end the process of automatically charging our youth as if they were adults. Discretionary waivers, a process to evaluate each youth and each charge, would still exist without these automatic mechanisms. The difference? A juvenile court judge, having listened to counsel on each side of the case and to expert witnesses, would be the decision-maker.

We have a choice. We can continue to lead the nation by throwing our kids into the adult system or we can handle these cases – these kids – in the juvenile courts that are built to address their challenges.

We would like to thank Maryland Matters for the content. Click HERE to view the entire comprehensive article.