Baltimore Sun

After community resistance stifled past plans, juveniles charged as adults in Baltimore will be held in a new $35 million detention center that state corrections officials say is better equipped to rehabilitate them.

“We intend to use this facility to help change the lives of our troubled youth,” Maryland Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Stephen T. Moyer said Friday during a media tour of the 60,537-square-foot, two-story Youth Detention Center at 926 Greenmount Ave.

He said the facility provides an “opportunity to get them back on the right side of the criminal justice system where they can be productive citizens in the city and not come back to this facility.”

The detention center’s opening comes as the number of youths charged as adults and held at such facilities has been dropping. While the new facility can house up to 60 youths — 50 males and 10 females — the city typically houses fewer than 15 on an average day, according to corrections department spokesman Gerry Shields. In fact, the average daily population has dropped from 44 in fiscal year 2013 to nine this past fiscal year, according to Moyer’s agency.

Many youth advocates and community leaders opposed spending money on a youth jail, urging the funds be directed to services like youth centers and summer jobs programs.

Melanie Shapiro, director of juvenile justice policy for the Office of the Public Defender, said the money could have been better spent helping to prevent young people from getting in trouble. [MORE]