Wicomico County State’s Attorney weighs in on new Juvenile Crime Reform Bill
WICOMICO COUNTY, Md – The Wicomico County State’s Attorney’s office is praising the passage of the Maryland Juvenile Crime Reform bill, which aims to increase accountability for juveniles as it pertains to violent and non-violent crimes.
The bill now requires notification to the State’s Attorneys’ offices across the state when the Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) processes a case that would have been a felony or violent crime had the alleged juvenile been an adult.
It also allows for the State’s Attorney’s Office to be at the table when discussing of next steps for a juvenile whether that’s diversion programs, probationary programs mandated through the courts, or more serious legal action.
Assistant State’s Attorney for Wicomico County Patrick Gilbert tells 47ABC, they often have more background information on a juvenile than DJS may have, and say it’s important for them to play a role, stressing their goal is not to place kids behind bars.
If you have a ten-year-old who is carrying a gun out on the street, there’s probably other stuff going on in that ten-year-old life, that ten-year-old is not a hardened criminal that’s out there carrying a gun because they want to and because they know it’s the wrong thing to do, that ten-year-old probably doesn’t have a whole lot of adult figures in their life that care about them,” Gilbert said.
“This brings us back into the picture, sort of gives us back that seat at the table where we can weigh in on these decisions and sort of bring this institutional base of knowledge we have is really the only politically accountable body that’s tasked with enforcing the criminal law here in Wicomico County,” he said.
Gilbert says crucially the bill also extends the mandatory probation duration for juveniles. Gilbert says the State Department of Juvenile Services programming and Children in Need of Supervision (CINS) systems are all voluntary- and not all juveniles take advantage of programs offered.
But through the juvenile court system treatment deemed necessary can be mandated as part of the probation and now on a longer timetable.
“This is giving the court more time to identify those challenges and identify services that will help the child address those challenges is really important, and what we saw before is that we just didn’t have enough time with these probation restrictions and now we’ve got more time,” he said.
However, despite a positive outlook on the bill as a whole, a key measure championed by State’s Attorney Jamie Dykes during hearings about the reform to allow the questioning of juveniles without an Attorney present was not in the final language.
“The position of the Maryland State Attorneys Association is and always has been, that courts, that judges the Constitution, that the common law provide adequate safeguards to prevent juvenile false confessions from resulting in convictions, and so when that ability was taken away from law enforcement, it has made sort of it is complicated our ability to understand the true scope of criminal activity.
Gilbert says those questions can often be the only way they gain insight about crimes from alleged suspects, but says they are grateful for the reform and increased accountability through DJS that did pass.
“I can’t express how grateful I am to the more administration for supporting these initiatives to the Senate president and the speaker of the house, to the chairman of judicial proceedings in the judiciary and again, to our Eastern Shore delegation, and specifically to Senator Cardoza,” Gilbert said.
