One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: The Last Six Months of Criminal Justice
A criminal justice crisis
The state of Maryland has a recidivism rate of 40%, ranking in the bottom half of all states. Recidivism measures the tendency of a prisoner to reoffend; Maryland, with a rate of 40%, finds two in every five released prisoners back in prison. It's often used as a benchmark to assess the state of the criminal justice system in a state. It’s a benchmark that Maryland fails to reach, and a benchmark Maryland won’t reach until policymakers and leaders enact change.
In an effort to fight crime, Maryland has repeatedly fallen back to “tough on crime” policies, ignoring the proven benefits of reform and rehabilitation. It's a dangerous trend: one that disproportionately punishes Black Americans and Latino Americans.
Over the past few months, the Maryland General Assembly and Maryland Governor Wes Moore enacted a series of policies on the criminal justice system. They range from the good, bringing higher education to Maryland’s prison system, creating the Office of the Correctional Ombudsman, and allocating greater funding towards juvenile justice reform, to the bad, dangerously cutting funding to correctional facilities and passing legislation to expand juvenile detention to younger children.
Expanding criminal justice reform
The University System of Maryland and Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services in April of 2024 announced opportunities for incarcerated individuals to receive a bachelor’s degree and other certificates through a series of courses and classes. The opportunities, provided by 12 institutions and three regional higher learning centers, allows incarcerated individuals to better prepare for life outside of prison as they re enter society after serving their sentence. Incarcerated individuals, through the university system, can also receive federal pell grants to take higher education classes.
These opportunities are a step away from the flawed, yet often used, policy of locking up repeat offenders and imposing harsher sentences. Instead, education and workforce programs, like higher education in prisons, are found to reduce the likelihood of recidivism by 14.8%. The impact of this reduction in recidivism is even greater: $182 billion saved in expenses to house prisoners. It also reduces a cost more difficult to quantify: the cost of crime on the victims themselves. When re offenses are decreased, so is crime as a whole.
Read about our work bringing educational opportunities to prisons here
The Maryland General Assembly also passed legislation establishing the Office of the Correctional Ombudsman. Under Senate Bill 134, the Office of the Correctional Ombudsman would be an independent operation, conducting reviews and assessments of programs administered by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. It comes after problems in Maryland’s correctional facilities generated calls for transparency and accountability.
The Office of the Correctional Ombudsman provides another avenue for reform to occur, brings light to the issues preventing equal access to justice that often exist in correctional facilities, and holds executive departments accountable. The bill is yet to be signed by Governor Wes Moore, however. If the legislation is approved, the incarcerated would be granted a long-overdue voice, directly advocating for more humane treatment through desperately needed oversight.
Governor Wes Moore’s mixed message
Attempts to close the gap for a more equal criminal justice system come in light of dangerous funding cuts. In 2023, Governor Wes Moore inherited a correctional system left in crisis. Prisons were understaffed by thousands of officers, educational programs for inmates were shut down or scaled back, and cases of violence and assault increased. All of these issues were caused or exacerbated by a lack of funding. All too often, the civil rights of prisoners are tied to the funding governments grant for the correctional system.
Governor Wes Moore agrees with the importance of funding, stating that the budget “defines our values.” In his campaign, the governor outlined his platform, noting the criminal justice crisis in Maryland and supporting greater funding towards reforming probation and parole and strengthening re-entry programs. On the topic of criminal justice, the governor has always been straightforward; use the methods the numbers support: rehabilitation and support.
It comes as a surprise, then, that Governor Wes Moore’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year sends mixed messages. On one hand, the budget increases funding for opportunities and support for youth who come in contact with the Department of Juvenile Services. It's a move that puts focus on alternative measures to incarceration and on rehabilitation and prevention rather than punishment. On the other hand, the budget decreases critical funding for the Division of Probation and Parole Services. The division, while its primary function is to supervise individuals on parole and probation, initiates non-punitive services like treatment for substance abuse and rehabilitation. A division that seeks to close the revolving door of the criminal justice system and reduce recidivism should be of “value” for Governor Wes Moore’s budget, and, more importantly, would be an integral facet of his plan, outlined among his numerous campaign promises, to reform probation and parole.
An expanding undue process of the law
On May 16, 2024, Governor Wes Moore signed a series of bills passed by the Maryland General Assembly. Among them, a measure expanding juvenile detention jurisdiction to 10 to 12-year olds and reducing the amount of time juvenile services intake officers have to decide whether a child would face judicial action. The law would decrease this decision period from 25 days to 15 days. A fourth grader shouldn’t have to face a future behind bars. A government officer shouldn’t be tasked with deciding the fate of a child’s entire future in two weeks.
In fact, the General Assembly’s decision to deal with the juvenile criminal justice system with increased judicial jurisdiction and use of incarceration signal a troubling turn towards “tough on crime” policies. The measures acknowledge the increased harm of turning towards such policies; its equity impact note states that “any increase in intakes under the bill or other impacts — positive or negative — will likely affect Black youth to the greatest extent.” But there are numerous other harms the measures don’t acknowledge.
Juvenile offenders have extremely high recidivism rates: often, much higher than the rates of adult offenders. In states that release recidivism data, up to 80 percent of the youth who are incarcerated are rearrested within 3 years of release. The issue is only further exacerbated by an ineffective criminal justice system and juvenile incarceration system. Since juvenile detention and other punishment-focused approaches don’t address the root causes of criminal behavior, they fail in reducing re offenses. In fact, the inefficacy of incarceration on youth is well-studied. Incarceration is so especially deplorable it's worse than nothing at all. A study by MIT economist Joseph Doyle found that those who were incarcerated as juveniles are 23 percentage points more likely to end up in jail as an adult when compared with juvenile offenders who avoided incarceration.
The juvenile justice measures the General Assembly passed isn’t just any juvenile incarceration law. Instead, it gives government officers the power to inflict lasting damage to a child’s health and well-being for the rest of their lives. Studies find that young people sent to correctional facilities suffer health challenges into adulthood. By expanding judicial jurisdiction to 10-year olds, the General Assembly sentences children to a life behind bars and a life of illness.
