Juvenile Detention

Anne Arundel Developer eyed for BRAC help Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold told Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown and the O'Malley administration's base closing and realignment subcabinet last week that he and the commander of Fort Meade are talking now about whether the developer of a 2 million-square-foot office complex on one corner of the post will help pay for road widenings and signal upgrades to handle increased traffic from the project....

Maryland Juvenile Services Secretary Kenneth C. Montague Jr. traveled out of state at least 29 times during his four years in office to attend conferences or retreats and tour juvenile facilities-- even as criticism mounted here that his agency and its programs were a shambles. The trips to Miami Beach, Phoenix, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans, Denver, San Diego and other cities are described in records recently released by the state in response to a Public Information Act request filed by The Sun. As Montague took to the road, the agency he headed was being pilloried by federal investigators and an independent state monitor for unacceptably high levels of violence, severe overcrowding and other problems in juvenile detention centers.

In the wake of a string of security lapses and incidents of abuse at state juvenile justice facilities, Gov. Parris N. Glendening is dispatching a team of management experts to improve the troubled Department of Juvenile Justice.Mike Morrill, Glendening's chief press spokesman, said the governor and Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend decided to send in the team after hearing "a few little rumblings" about problems in the department.The experts -- known unofficially in state government circles as a "SWAT team" -- will spend an estimated two to four months assessing the operations and procedures of the department, Morrill said.

JONESBORO, Ark. -- Just before a judge remanded 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson and 12-year-old Andrew Golden into juvenile detention for a middle school shooting that killed a teacher and four girls, the older boy offered a childlike excuse.He said he did not mean to do it."I thought we were going to shoot over their heads," said the trembling Johnson youth, who pleaded guilty in an adjudication hearing -- the juvenile court equivalent of a trial -- in the Craighead County Courthouse yesterday, on his 14th birthday.

JONESBORO, Ark. -- As her family, neighbors and classmates said goodbye to 12-year-old Paige Ann Herring in the first of two funerals yesterday, a man in blue jeans stood in the foyer of the packed Farmer's Union funeral home, his arms wrapped tightly around his weeping 7-year-old daughter.A tiny gold cross glinted in the neckline of the girl's simple blue dress, one more sign of the faith this city has, and will need, as the funerals continue into the weekend.Later yesterday, some of those same mourners moved a few blocks over to Emerson Funeral Home to hear another preacher, another prayer, in the funeral of 11-year-old Natalie Brooks.

WASHINGTON -- We are a very confused and troubled society when it comes to crime and punishment, especially when childhood or mental illness are involved.We go to inexplicable lengths to protect a 13-year-old who commits cold-blooded murder, but we electrocute a 35-year-old who has the mental faculties of a 5-year-old. It is as though body size is a mitigating or aggravating factor in major crimes.Megan's lawIn some places, such as Arkansas, we put a teen-age killer in "juvenile detention," but decree that the state must let him walk free at age 21. That is probably like sending a youngster to a criminal's finishing school, then giving him a shingle under which he can practice his craft in adulthood.

Three youths were committed to juvenile detention facilities yesterday for their role in the beating of a school librarian during a brawl at Meade High School last fall.Judge Eugene M. Lerner found the youths delinquent -- the juvenile equivalent of guilty -- in February on charges of assault with intent to maim in the Sept. 30 attack on Donald Gobbi, 50, of Odenton.The youths, two 17 and one 16, will be supervised by the Juvenile Services Administration indefinitely and could be in detention facilities until they turn 21.The attack occurred as Mr. Gobbi tried to break up a fight between white and black students.

Two teen-age boys stare with large, questioning eyes through the window of their cell at the Cheltenham Youth Facility They have been "socially separated" from the rest of their unit for fighting a territorial battle bech other.Before the night is over, the room likely will be filled with five boys, sleeping on cots in a space of perhaps 180 square feet, with barely walking space between the beds.On an average day at this juvenile detention center in southern Prince George's County, about 250 teen-age boys -- 60 percent of them from Baltimore -- spend as little as 1 1/2 hours in school, sleep in tiny, bare cells built to hold a maximum of 167 boys, and wait.

Two Meade High School students pleaded guilty yesterday in Anne Arundel Juvenile Court to charges stemming from a brawl in a hallway last fall that injured the school librarian.A 16-year-old pleaded guilty to battery and a 15-year-old to disturbing school activities.Donald Gobbi, the 50-year-old librarian, was knocked to the floor and kicked in the head, back and legs several times after he rushed to intervene, according to testimony. The brawl occurred in a second-floor hallway about 10:30 a.m. Sept.

Concerned about plans to bring a juvenile detention center to its neighborhood, Children's Hospital has arranged a meeting of government officials, business and community leaders in the Cold Spring Lane-Greenspring Avenue area.The meeting is set for 1 p.m. today in the hospital's Bowles Auditorium. The hospital is at 3825 Greenspring Ave.City and state officials are considering a site on Cold Spring Lane between the Jones Falls Expressway and Greenspring Avenue for a juvenile justice center, which would include a courthouse and a 144-bed detention facility.

Teen switched to home detention in firebombing A teenager who was ordered last week to spend the rest of his summer in a juvenile detention facility for his role in the firebombing of a Piney Orchard town house, in retaliation for the homicide of a Crofton youth, was switched Tuesday to home detention. Anne Arundel County Juvenile Court Master Cynthia Ferris changed her earlier decision, putting the 16-year-old's punishment in line with the other two juveniles in the case, who have been released from a detention facility.

The case of 17-year-old Lamont Davis, who was arrested last month and charged as an adult with shooting a 5-year-old girl in the head and wounding another youth, should have been a wake-up call for the state Department of Juvenile Services. The teen had been under DJS monitoring for a year when the shooting occurred, and during that time he had been arrested four times. He was awaiting sentencing in juvenile court after confessing to an assault and robbery committed in April. Anyone looking at Mr. Davis' record could have guessed he should never have been allowed back on the streets.

A 16-year-old boy who has admitted that he took part in the firebombing of a Piney Orchard townhouse that was intended as retaliation for the homicide of a Crofton teenager was sentenced Friday to serve the remainder of the summer in juvenile detention. Anne Arundel County Juvenile Court Master Cynthia Ferris ordered the boy, whom The Baltimore Sun is not naming because he is a juvenile, held at the Western Maryland Children's Center until Aug. 20. The judge, who also ordered the boy to pay $1,800 in victims' restitution, said she took into account the boy's cooperation with prosecutors and the two months he has already served in detention.

Baltimore police knocked on 1,158 doors last month as they tried to serve warrants on some of the most dangerous kids in the city. The monthlong juvenile warrant initiative - the largest of its kind that city officials could recall - netted 115 arrests, including 38 of "top priority" youths and two who were carrying handguns when they were taken into custody. "We let them know we mean business," Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said yesterday at a news conference to announce the results of the initiative, which was conducted in coordination with the state Department of Juvenile Services.

Anne Arundel Developer eyed for BRAC help Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold told Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown and the O'Malley administration's base closing and realignment subcabinet last week that he and the commander of Fort Meade are talking now about whether the developer of a 2 million-square-foot office complex on one corner of the post will help pay for road widenings and signal upgrades to handle increased traffic from the project....

An Anne Arundel County teenager who gave birth into a toilet at her Arnold home and disposed of the infant's body in a trash can outside was sentenced yesterday to a juvenile detention facility until she turns 21, the stiffest penalty available. The former Broadneck High School student, who was 17 at the time of her son's death in December 2005, is on house arrest while Maryland Department of Juvenile Services officials come up with a recommendation on where she should serve the time. The Sun is not identifying her because she was tried as a juvenile.

Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to name a high-ranking Connecticut official as his secretary of juvenile services, sources familiar with the decision said yesterday, giving the agency a new leader as it grapples with a teenager's death at a privately run Carroll County residential facility regulated by the state. Donald W. Devore, Connecticut's juvenile justice director, has been identified as the top choice of the O'Malley administration to head the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, said the sources, who didn't want to be identified pending the official announcement.

Maryland Juvenile Services Secretary Kenneth C. Montague Jr. traveled out of state at least 29 times during his four years in office to attend conferences or retreats and tour juvenile facilities-- even as criticism mounted here that his agency and its programs were a shambles. The trips to Miami Beach, Phoenix, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans, Denver, San Diego and other cities are described in records recently released by the state in response to a Public Information Act request filed by The Sun. As Montague took to the road, the agency he headed was being pilloried by federal investigators and an independent state monitor for unacceptably high levels of violence, severe overcrowding and other problems in juvenile detention centers.

Officials at a state-run juvenile detention center in Prince George's County falsified records for more than a year to make it look as if workers were getting training, required by law, on how to deal with the troubled youths housed there, an independent monitor has found. In response to the findings by the state Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services said the training coordinator at the Cheltenham Youth Facility was dismissed last week and officials are reviewing training practices elsewhere to see whether similar problems exist at other juvenile jails and youth treatment centers.

A top deputy to Maryland Juvenile Services Secretary Kenneth C. Montague Jr., brought in by the Ehrlich administration less than two years ago to help lead reform efforts, abruptly resigned yesterday. Carl Sanniti, deputy secretary of operations, submitted a letter of resignation to Montague shortly before 5 p.m., said Edward Hopkins, a spokesman for juvenile services. Hopkins said he was told that Sanniti "wanted to pursue other opportunities." Roberto Rodriguez, assistant secretary for residential services, was appointed acting deputy secretary of operations, Hopkins said.