Parents and advocates question conditions for juveniles at Baltimore County Detention Center
BALTIMORE -- There are concerns about juveniles being housed in the Baltimore County Detention Center.
It's an issue the county public defender's office has been raising for years, saying the conditions inside are not suitable for children.
"It shouldn't be a process that adults go through, let alone a child," Serene Holmes of Baltimore County said.
In Maryland, by law, children as young as 14, who are charged with certain crimes, are automatically charged as an adult and are first sent to adult detention.
Serene Holmes' son spent about 40 days in the Baltimore County Detention Center in 2019 when he was 17 years old.
She said it was no place for a child.
"He was on a phone call with me and he said, 'If I have to stay here, I'm not going to be able to do this, and I'm not going to be able to make it home,'" Holmes said.
After that call, Holmes said her son was placed on suicide watch.
"For, like. 92 hours with nothing but a blanket, a plastic blanket at that, with no clothes and was told he couldn't talk to me," Holmes said.
Conditions for children in the Baltimore County Detention Center have been a concern for the Baltimore County Public Defender's Office for more than a decade.
The office raised concerns back in 2018, citing issues such as inadequate health care and education for the juveniles, that the adult inmates weren't being kept separate from the younger ones, and that the kids were being placed in solitary confinement.
Candice Dickens said that's what her son went through during his time behind bars back in 2018.
"My son was also 1-23 and what that means for those who do not know is that for 23 hours you're in confinement and that can last from weeks to months and then you get out for one hour," Dickens said.
Public defender Michelle Kim said some of the concerns were addressed in 2018, but not enough progress has been made since then.
"There was no, kind of, institutional shift in terms of what happened to these kids," Baltimore County Maryland Office Of The Public Defender Attorney Lead Attorney Michelle Kim said. "So, the exact same problems that were happening in 2018 are happening right now."
So, earlier this month, the Public Defender's Office sent the Department of Corrections a letter raising their concerns. They received a return letter on March 16, which said the Director of the Baltimore County Department of Corrections hadn't found any of those issues at the jail but would do an investigation into them.
Kim hoped the Youth Equity and Safety Act, also known as the "YES Act," which would ensure children are sent to juvenile jail, would solve the issue. But, the bill remains stalled in the General Assembly for the thirteenth straight year.
Kim said there is an easy fix to this problem: to have county leaders change their protocols and send juveniles to juvenile detention first instead of adult detention.
Holmes said this and the passage of the YES Act would have made a world of difference for her son.
"If he was in a children's facility, he would've had a mental health service," Holmes said. "Allowing the YES Act would've allowed them to start somewhere where they could've been helped."
The Baltimore County Department of Corrections said its investigation into the jail will be complete next month.
WJZ reached out to the County Executive's office about the juveniles in the jail and received a statement that said the county is reviewing the letter sent by the Public Defender's Office, evaluating current policies, and plans to provide a thorough response.
