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Investing in Schools Not Jails (2004 Budget)
Maryland is spending more every year to incarcerate a child than to educate a child, at a time when juvenile crime has dropped and Maryland's schools are failing. Our children and youth need better schools, more books, and smaller class sizes, not more detention centers and jails. The 2004 budget needs to invest in education, not incarceration.
Strengthening Maryland's Families (2004 budget)
Legislators must support policies, practices and funding that strengthen Maryland's families in their capacity to provide a nurturing environment for children and youth that supports positive youth development and prevents delinquency. Legislators should support the 2004 budget to provide funding to empower families in caring for children and youth by making funding available for up front support services to families before youth get into trouble such as crisis hotlines, counseling and parent support services; family-to-family and parent-to-parent programs; and require state agencies to involve families in the development and implementation of service plans for children and youth in a meaningful way. Legislators must demand an increase in spending for evidence-based, family involved services in the communities where children live and go to school.
Ending the School to Prison Pipeline (HB 687)
More and more elementary school children are being denied an education and are ending up on the streets, in trouble with the law, and in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. Maryland legislators should put a moratorium on elementary school suspensions to keep kids in school learning and achieving their full potential by supporting HB 687.
Closing Cheltenham and Increasing Community-Based Alternatives (2004 Budget)
Despite Maryland legislators best efforts to shut down Cheltenham in 2001 by approving budget language for demolishing the facility and reinvesting the funds into community-based alternatives, Cheltenham remains open two years later with no closure in sight. Cheltenham is still one of the remaining visible symbols in Maryland of Jim Crow laws. Over one hundred years after its founding, the facility still houses mostly African-American youth (81%). African-American youth in Maryland are more likely to be incarcerated than white youths in similar circumstances, so while white youth are often sent home, Maryland's African-American youth are sent to a dangerous detention facility -- Cheltenham - miles away from their communities where they will not receive adequate schooling, services or mental health treatment. Maryland legislators need to close down Cheltenham once and for all by approving a 2004 budget with a deadline for closure this year, and reinvest those funds into the development and implementation of community-based alternatives to incarceration in the community.
Providing Treatment Without Long Waits (HB 530)
Too many youth are awaiting "placement" in Maryland's youth prisons, spending weeks and months, even up to a year in an unsafe detention facility like Cheltenham rather than a treatment program. African-American youth are disparately impacted by these discriminatory policies. Maryland legislators should significantly reduce the amount of time children wait in detention facilities to get treatment by supporting HB 530, to limit stays in detention "pending placement" to 15 days.
Keeping Kids out of Maryland's Adult Jails (HB 520)
Too many youth are ending up in Maryland's adult prisons and the consequences for youth of color are devastating: Studies show that Baltimore's African-American youth are treated more harshly than white youth even when charged with similar offenses. White youth receive rehabilitative treatment and services - if they are prosecuted at all - while African-American and Latino youth are sent to the adult criminal court where they receive no rehabilitative treatment and services, and they get a criminal record instead of an education. Legislators should support HB 520 to remedy this unequal justice and keep kids out of adult jails.