Two legislators are attempting to tackle the problem of detaining youth in adult detention centers, with potential changes to be made during the 2026 legislative session.
During the 2025 MACo Summer Conference, state and local leaders came together to discuss the problem of holding juvenile offenders in adult facilities, particularly local detention centers. What audience members saw at that session was something unique – overwhelming agreement, between state and local entities, that this is a practice that compromises rehabilitation leading to worse public safety outcomes and burns taxpayer dollars in the process. Counties will look forward to continuing to work with stakeholders to address this challenge during the 2026 legislative session and potentially alongside two legislators that are seeking to fix this.
According to a recent opinion article in The Baltimore Sun, Senator Will Smith, Chair of the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, will reintroduce legislation during the 2026 legislative session to roll back some of the provisions in Maryland law that result in the automatic charging of a juveniles as adults. This is the practice that leads to the automatic holding of juveniles in local detentions centers and state prisons for extended periods of time. The bill in question is SB 422 / HB 1433 from the 2025 legislative session and could help alleviate some of this problematic detention by limiting the number of offenses that would send a juvenile to a local detention center. A Maryland Matters article covered some of the discussion around the most recent bill during the 2025 legislative session and highlighted components of the oppositions’ concerns including multiple states attorneys that say the rehabilitation services the Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) is said to have are not actually in place or working as intended.
Delegate Sandy Bartlett, Vice Chair of the Judiciary Committee in the Maryland House of Delegates has also attempted to tackle the issue for the last two years but from a different angle. Instead of changing the sentencing practices, the provisions of the bill – HB 1107 / SB 827 attempted to change the holding practice by prohibiting the holding or detaining of youth in an adult facility. This was a bill that county officials across Maryland advocated for with Delegate Bartlett and look forward to continuing in the coming session. The opposition, in this case mainly the DJS, claimed they do not have enough space in the state facilities to house additional offenders, despite this being a primary component of their charge.
The provisions of both Senator Smith’s bill and Delegate Bartlett’s have the potential to rescue a handful of alleged youth offenders from the perils of the adult system. Both efforts wisely recognize that adult detention centers operated by the State and counties are not suitable for the holding of minors. Even in instances where the sight and sound separation mandates are achieved it often leads to unwarranted isolation for the youth, particularly at a time when they experience what is likely great personal and emotional hardship. Counties will follow and look to support both efforts during the 2026 legislative session.
