Troubled Youths

Keyunnia, 13, says she's back in school because of it. Nichole, 15, says she's stopped fighting, although her friends reacted skeptically to this assertion. Shelton, 17, says he no longer stays out all night to play cards.The three were among 40 youngsters enrolled in Choice, a community-based intervention program for juvenile offenders and other troubled youths, who came out in the rain yesterday morning to plant trees and shrubs around the organization's headquarters in Cherry Hill.The volunteer work is one part of Choice, which was organized 2 1/2 years ago by Mark K. Shriver.

As the legislative session closed last week, I was happy to see that we made great progress on behalf of Maryland's children. We made strides in health, child welfare and education. However, one of the standout accomplishments was in juvenile justice. Before the General Assembly session began, juvenile justice public policy advocates came together to hammer out a five-piece legislative package aimed at right-sizing the Department of Juvenile Services and stopping the transfer of youths to the adult system.

The Maryland Cabinet official in charge of child welfare established yesterday a separate office directly under his authority to license and monitor 200 privately run group homes for troubled youths. Department of Human Resources Secretary Christopher J. McCabe appointed Carmen Brown, an executive with one of the state's biggest and most respected group home companies, as the first director of the new Office of Group Home Licensing and Monitoring. "It's a significant step for the department," McCabe said.

Your recent editorial on the proposed expansion of the Silver Oak Academy juvenile resident treatment facility failed to address the immediate need for additional treatment beds for youthful offenders ("Backsliding at DJS," Jan. 7). Far from "backsliding," the Department of Juvenile Services is showing great foresight in seeking capacity to treat youth who would otherwise be in detention while waiting for a vacant treatment bed and not getting credit for their time in detention. The simple reality is that we do not have enough space in state-run facilities for youth awaiting treatment.

The Victor Cullen Center is Maryland's answer to big, noisy and unsafe juvenile treatment facilities. It is the model on which the state is planning a network of small, secure, regional centers for troubled youths who can't be served in their neighborhoods. But the Frederick County facility remains a work in progress as state officials continue to find the right mix of education opportunities, skills training and after-care programming. Rearrest of program participants is not uncommon, but most have not been convicted, and that's some measure of progress.

The elderly men and women of the St. Ann Adult Day Care sat in a circle, mimicking the arm and leg movements of Dorothy Gaylord, a program assistant, as they performed their daily routine of stretches, flexes and claps. Seated among the regulars at the Southwest Baltimore center were some younger, more limber people who tried to keep pace with their older counterparts, smiling to each other at the surprising strenuousness of the session. Eight students from the Woodbourne Center, a state-funded private school in North Baltimore that temporarily houses and counsels troubled youths, volunteered at St Ann's this week with their social studies teacher, Robert Croyle.

As a member of the National Guard's Military Youth Corps program, Don Blontz took off in a four-seater Cessna at Martin State Airport yesterday and landed 20 minutes later a changed person."

Youth Services International Inc., an Owings Mills-based operator of educational and correctional programs for troubled youths, reported yesterday that its first-quarter earnings were down 23 percent despite a 21.7 percent increase in revenues.For the three months ended Sept. 30, the company earned $570,000, or 6 cents a share. That compared with a profit of $742,000, or 8 cents a share, in the same period a year ago.Revenues totaled $27.7 million, up 21.7 percent from $22.75 in the corresponding period of 1995.

Youth Services International Inc. yesterday named as its chief executive officer a top official of a company that operates prisons. He replaces the founder of the Owings Mills-based firm.The appointment of Timothy P. Cole to supplant founder W. James Hindman comes after a recent plunge in YSI's common stock, from a high of $39.50 per share in April to a closing price yesterday of $17.50 per share.Five-year-old Youth Services operates 18 residential and community-based centers for 4,000 troubled youths in 11 states.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer's call for a takeover by a private contractor of the Charles Hickey School for juveniles is an idea well forth pursuing. Bringing in private firms to run programs for troubled youths has worked exceedingly well for Maryland in recent years. It might be the answer to the Hickey School's chronic problems.With the closing of the much-criticized Montrose School in 1988, all of the state's unruly juveniles are sent to Hickey. It is the state's only large-scale training facility, with 236 youths.

Regarding your recent editorial on holding juvenile offenders in adult detention centers, here are some specific recommendations that might assist in salvaging the lives of some of these misguided youth ("A broken system", Aug. 7). •Discipline and respect could be inculcated by engaging a local military reserve unit for drilling exercises, and eventually organizing the youth into military like groups to perform these exercises themselves. •Community involvement to develop a positive attitude among residents could be strengthened by having juveniles choose to donate half their lunch or dinner each week to a local organization that serves the needy.

When writer Lisa Kawata mentioned the term “social enterprise” to me a few months ago, I nodded vaguely, wondering to myself if that had something to do with Facebook. Once she'd explained the concept to me, I was enamored with it. These are people who value giving back so much that they've built it into their business model. Or, as Loyola professor Peter Lorenzi puts it, they have a sense of “intangible wealth.” Greenbridge Pottery in Dayton is one such local business.

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services has suspended its diversion programs for troubled youths, a decision that officials said is not related to a recent portrayal on the A&E network show "Beyond Scared Straight. " The programs, which typically send youths into prisons with hopes of deterring them from a life of crime by having them interact with inmates, were stopped last week, said Rick Binetti, the department's director of communications. In a Jan. 20 episode of the A&E show, set at the state's Jessup facility, an inmate threw a teenager into a bathroom to show what happens behind bars.

Is anybody in charge of Maryland's chronically disorganized and dysfunctional Department of Juvenile Services? You'd be hard-pressed to think so given two scathing reports this week. They found the DJS is plagued by sloppy paperwork and lax security procedures that may not only have contributed to the death last year of a youth detention facility staff member but also caused the agency to needlessly waste millions of dollars while failing to rehabilitate troubled youth or safely reintegrate them into their communities.

It's certainly welcome news that conditions in the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center have improved enough to persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to lift federal oversight of the youth lockup it has held under scrutiny since 2007. But just because the facility has been found to be "in substantial compliance" with minimum federal standards doesn't mean officials there won't continue to face huge challenges dealing with the city's most troubled youths. The center, which opened in 2003, was originally intended to house up to 144 youths, most of whom were either awaiting trial in the juvenile court system or long-term placement in a rehabilitation program.

Federal monitoring of the long-troubled Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center is likely to end soon, state juvenile services officials said Wednesday, making it the third youth facility in Maryland to be lifted from such oversight in little more than two years. The officials said a U.S. Department of Justice monitor has told them the city facility appears to be in "substantial compliance" with an oversight plan laid out in May 2007. Federal officials sought to make the facility safer by improving suicide prevention programs, education and behavior management, said Jay Cleary, a spokesman for the state Department of Juvenile Services.

Youth Services International Inc., the Owings Mills-based operator of schools for troubled youths, yesterday announced a major expansion program aimed at developing facilities in two states.The company plans to lease a 63-acre vacant college campus in Tarkio, Mo., and buy a small treatment facility for troubled young people in Mammoth, Calif.The expansion, when completed, should increase the number of youths in the company's charge by more than 30 percent and increase its revenues by $12 million a year.

Maryland's Department of Juvenile Services has long been an agency in limbo - with many reforms either stalled or abandoned. It's Gov. Martin O'Malley's turn now to push for meaningful progress. And whomever he picks to head the agency - as well as other top-ranked appointees within it - should be experienced and committed to implementing smart policy and operational changes that can save more troubled youths. In any given year, more than 30,000 young Marylanders come in contact with DJS, and less than 20 percent are placed in one of the agency's secure facilities.

Peter Moritz Levin, a retired Towson juvenile law attorney and noted ballpoint pen collector, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at his Cedarcroft home. He was 77. Mr. Levin, the son of an attorney and a homemaker, was born and raised in Detroit, where he graduated in 1951 from Cranbrook High School. He attended Wayne State University and earned a bachelor's degree in 1955 from the University of Michigan. After graduating from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1963, his first job as a lawyer was working for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which was followed by a brief stint with the Baltimore City Department of Legal Aid. He was working as a claims adjuster for Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. when he went into private practice in 1970 with his wife, the former Nancy McCortney, whom he married that year.

Despite significant protests, Maryland appears to be moving full steam ahead with a project to construct a new $100 million jail to house youth offenders who are being tried as adults, with a bid conference on the project scheduled for Wednesday. Gov. Martin O'Malley and other leaders are addressing the right problem — the current practice of housing youth offenders in Baltimore's adult detention center — but building a new youth jail is the wrong solution. Safety for youth at the city detention center is a serious issue.