Juvenile Services

Advocates for Children and Youth released a study Wednesday that says that more than 40 percent of children sent to group homes would be better served by Multisystemic Therapy, an intense, family-based intervention program. The percentage is twice as much as the state sends to such therapy. The sample for the study included 35 children between the ages of 11 and 17, advocates said. After a review of court records, pre-disposition investigation reports, placement and treatment histories and other documents within the juvenile court files, the study found that 15 of the children were eligible for the therapy, advocates said.

Five months before a student at the Bowling Brook Preparatory School collapsed and died while being restrained by staff, the school's nurse told the Department of Juvenile Services that she was concerned about the safety of youths held there, according to documents obtained by The Sun. Janis Miller complained in August to the state about the staff's handling of several youths - including one who was badly bruised and scraped while being restrained....

Sheriff's deputies and state police are investigating the death of a 17-year-old East Baltimore youth who collapsed Tuesday evening while being restrained by staff at a privately run residential program for juvenile offenders. Isaiah Simmons III was pronounced dead at Carroll Hospital Center after paramedics found him in cardiac arrest at the Bowling Brook Preparatory School near Westminster, officials said. Staff at the school attempted to subdue the youth after an outburst in which he allegedly threatened to harm other students and school personnel, according to the Carroll County Sheriff's Office.

The resignation of a state juvenile services official in the wake of disclosures of past abuse at a Montana facility doesn't end the matter. Juvenile Services Secretary Donald W. DeVore still has to answer for the agency's failure to fully investigate the employment record of Chris Perkins, who was appointed to run the state's new residential treatment center in Frederick County. The controversy over Mr. Perkins' employment involves allegations of abuse at the Swan Valley Youth Academy he ran in Montana.

When it comes to juvenile justice reforms, Gov. Martin O'Malley isn't just talking the talk. His proposed infusion of $21 million into the beleaguered state Department of Juvenile Services proves that he's serious about trying to improve the agency. He's putting precious dollars where they can make a difference in young people's lives. Supplemental budget appropriations, which this is, have been used in the past to fill budget needs that didn't make the chief executive's A-list or to fund new programs or to dole out pork.

It was not the Waldorf teenager's first time behind bars, and his lengthy criminal record - multiple auto thefts, assault, drug charges - persuaded the juvenile courts that he could not be trusted back in the community. And so Dennis, 17, spent six months dodging gang fights in a state-run juvenile jail in Prince George's County while officials tried to find a reformatory with room for him. Conditions in the jail were "ridiculous, bad, dirty - a lot of fights every day," he said. "I didn't learn anything."

Under pressure from the state, officials at Bowling Brook Preparatory School have agreed to close the 50-year-old reformatory where a student died five weeks ago while being restrained by staff. The privately run residential program in Carroll County issued a statement that it will shut down Friday even as construction crews kept working on an addition funded in part by the state. In Annapolis, Maryland's new juvenile services secretary, Donald W. DeVore, said his agency probably would have acted to revoke Bowling Brook's license if the once highly regarded program for juvenile offenders hadn't decided on its own to close.

With the Bowling Brook Preparatory School set to close Friday and the death of student Isaiah Simmons ruled a homicide by the state medical examiner, attention shifts to a Carroll County grand jury and possible criminal charges against staff who were restraining the 17-year-old when he died Jan. 23. But the focus shouldn't remain only there. The state Department of Juvenile Services, which licenses and inspects facilities in which it places troubled youths, has as much to answer for as does the residential center in Carroll County.

Opening the state's first new residential treatment facility for juvenile offenders in years will cost about twice as much as officials first estimated. The Victor Cullen Academy in Frederick County, due to open July 1 on the site of a defunct privately run facility, will cost the state about $11.2 million in renovations, plus $5.8 million to run it for the next year - well over the $6.8 million the legislature approved for the project this spring, officials said yesterday. The state Board of Public Works approved a contract yesterday for roofing repairs that are part of the renovation, despite reservations from Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot about the reliability of cost estimates for the project.

Gov. Martin O'Malley is asking the legislature to add $21 million to the budget of Maryland's troubled juvenile services system, including money to open the state's first new residential treatment program for youth offenders in more than a decade, officials said yesterday. The state is leaning toward using the site of the former Victor Cullen Academy in Frederick County, which closed in 2002, according to new Juvenile Services Secretary Donald W. DeVore. Acknowledging the problems that have beset large facilities, he said the new program would be smaller than those the state has run in the past.

The Maryland director of juvenile services told lawmakers Tuesday that he has expanded treatment options for the state's youngest criminals and improved the system. But youth advocates and some elected officials said Secretary Donald W. DeVore's reform efforts are not enough. DeVore pointed to the creation of research-supported treatment options for juvenile offenders who stay in their communities and the opening of a secure facility in Western Maryland two years ago as signs that the long-troubled Department of Juvenile Services has turned a corner.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys argued Tuesday over whether a 17-year-old who police say admitted raping a 7-year-old in his Crofton neighborhood March 20 should be tried as a juvenile or an adult. The distinction is crucial for David B. Raszewski of the 1700 block of Granite Court, who was charged as an adult with second-degree rape, assault and related charges. If convicted as a juvenile, he could be held for treatment until he turns 21. If convicted as an adult, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Attorneys for the teenager accused of shooting a 5-year-old girl in Southwest Baltimore plan to call the vendor for the state juvenile services' GPS ankle-monitoring system as a defense witness to show that the device provides an alibi. Defense attorneys also contend that at least three witnesses interviewed by police, including a 17-year-old also shot in the incident, identified a different person as the shooter but that police ignored their statements. Police have said that Lamont Davis, who had been arrested 15 times as a juvenile, was wearing a GPS ankle bracelet that police cut off when he was arrested in the shooting about 4 p.m. July 2. The case has raised questions about the effectiveness of the monitoring technology, a top priority of Gov. Martin O'Malley.

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold is asking state officials to step up their watch on a facility for troubled youths after a firefighter who responded to a false alarm was hit in the face with a plastic pipe - the latest of hundreds of police and fire calls there. "We want to make sure these facilities are held accountable," Leopold said Tuesday. He said he was troubled by the assault on a firefighter responding to an intentional false alarm at the shelter and group home outside Annapolis, and believed the overall number of police and fire calls there - more than 500 in about three and a half years - was "inordinate."

In May 2005, then-Mayor Martin O'Malley announced a 10-point plan to reform Maryland's juvenile justice system. He told Marylanders that "the community deserves juvenile justice that is responsive, effective and accountable to the public." Now, more than four years later and almost three years into his term as governor, the juvenile justice system in Maryland remains, as it was described in the O'Malley transition report, dangerously dysfunctional. Two years ago, Mr. O'Malley appointed Connecticut's juvenile justice director, Donald W. DeVore, to head Maryland's Department of Juvenile Services.

Maryland lawmakers said Tuesday that they plan fall hearings on the state Department of Juvenile Services in response to recent reports of problems at its highest-security treatment facility and concerns that the system is not equipped to deal with violent young offenders. Sen. Brian E. Frosh, the Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said he had been considering such a hearing for months, but "the revelations recently make it timely and urgent." A date had not been set. The chairman of the counterpart committee in the House of Delegates also is laying the groundwork for a review.

The young offenders sent to the Victor Cullen Center, the state's only locked facility for teenage boys convicted of crimes, might be too violent for the workers there to handle, Maryland's juvenile services watchdog said Monday in a report. The Maryland attorney general's Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit questioned whether Victor Cullen is secure enough - citing three escapes in two years, including one on May 27 in which several workers were seriously injured - and raised concerns about employee levels and training, and whether the treatment program used there is effective.

At 17, Lamont Davis has been arrested 15 times since age 10, including charges of drug dealing, carjacking with a handgun and assaults. Yet he's spent just a handful of weeks in juvenile treatment facilities over the years and was sent home in July after admitting to charges in a robbery. Days later, the Baltimore teen was arrested on charges that he critically wounded a 5-year-old girl as he shot at another youth. That Davis now faces more serious criminal charges than ever, city prosecutors and some public officials say, highlights a dangerous problem in the juvenile justice system: Because it emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment, teens who are lightly sanctioned for early offenses sometimes graduate to more violent crimes.

State officials promoted new GPS technology last year as a way to constantly monitor juvenile offenders, enabling the state to know the exact location of troubled youths and help keep communities and victims safe. But the shooting of a 5-year-old girl, caught in the crossfire as two juvenile offenders argued July 2, has cast attention on the limitations of the devices. Even though the person suspected in the shooting, a 17-year-old with a long juvenile record, was wearing a monitoring unit on his leg, officials did not know his whereabouts in the lead-up to the shooting and its aftermath.

Gov. Martin O'Malley met Thursday with senior staffers to decide on hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts as the state's largest public-sector employee union called on him to protect vital services and warned about potentially "dangerous" cutbacks. The administration has been poring over a list of budget cuts suggested by Cabinet secretaries - including a proposal to shutter some correctional facilities that would have saved $36 million but was rejected by O'Malley. The Democratic governor plans to present about $300 million in budget cuts to the Board of Public Works on Wednesday and another $400 million later this year.