Department of Juvenile Services: Baltimore treatment center opposition

The three-story brick building in North Baltimore's Woodbourne-McCabe neighborhood houses programs for troubled youth that are an alternative to detention programs. It is a quiet place that blends into the neighborhood. Without a sign that reads "State of Maryland Juvenile Services: Maryland Youth Residence Center," one would hardly know it was there.

But residents are worried what could come in light of a proposal by the state to renovate the building and expand it into a high-security residential center for youths. The building has been in the neighborhood for over 80 years and currently operates as an evening reporting center. The participants are picked up after school, fed dinner, helped with homework and given opportunities to participate in other enrichment activities before heading home.

Residents worry that the building will become less inconspicuous and negatively portray the neighborhood. Specifically, neighbors are hung up on fencing proposed to surround the property for security.

Some heard a six-foot fence is planned. Others, fourteen. Regardless, they worry what the fence will make people think about the neighborhood, perhaps that it is unsafe and not worth investing in.

Maryland Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent Schiraldi says plans are to renovate the building into a locked, 24-bed residential treatment center for young men. The goal is to keep young people local and draw on community-based partnerships, a strategy Schiraldi lauds as a research-proven approach for better outcomes for public safety and rehabilitating youth who get in trouble with the law.

"Isolation from the community negatively impacts committed youth," Schiraldi said in a subcommittee budget hearing earlier this year. "Serving youth closer to their homes and communities increases opportunities for families, caregivers, mentors and relatives to actively participate in treatment and play a critical role in meeting short- and long-term rehabilitative goals."

Residents are concerned about safety with having such a facility in a densely residential area. Some feel that the project doesn't align with the efforts to improve the community and that their neighborhood is continuously used as place for the city and state's problems.

Currently, a majority of treatment centers for young people are in Western Maryland. In 2023, Baltimore made up the largest percentage of placements in the state's treatment centers run by the Department of Juvenile Services, which are open to young people statewide.

Schiraldi is one of the country's leading experts on how using evidence-based practices in a criminal legal system can make communities safer. He's credited with making a national model out of transforming D.C.'s broken juvenile system with an emphasis on rehabilitating young people.

The department held several listening sessions between September and October to explain the goals of the treatment program and get feedback. That's where residents learned that fencing would be a component of the project. The locked facility would require a higher level of security than previous operations and is likely to have young people who committed violent crimes, a department official said.

Details for the facility are still being worked out, and the General Assembly must approve spending for the facility during the next budget. The fiscal year 2025 capital budget lists $1.43 million in bonds for the design of the project with more money needed in the next few years, totaling $46.1 million.

Initial plans propose a 14-foot candy cane fence around the property with hooking at the top (like a candy cane) without barbed wires.

Barbed wires or not, residents didn't seem to walk away from the community sessions knowing what the facility would truly become.

The center in Baltimore would house youths who are mostly 16, 17 and 18 years old and expected to reside there for six to 12 months, according to a department official. The young men could receive individual and family counseling and therapy, substance use treatment, trauma treatment and group therapy to help them think about their actions. It would be similar to the state's Victor Cullen Center in Frederick County.

"Detention or treatment, regardless, I think that it brings a certain connotation," said Councilman Mark Conway of the 4th District about the Baltimore project.

He said that although residents have come to him uneasy about the project, there's only so much his office can do because it's a state-owned property. He understands that the treatment center would help the juvenile services department but fails to see the community benefit, especially for those working hard to change it.

One such person is Phyllis Gilmore, the president of the Woodbourne-McCabe Neighborhood Association. She wants neighbors to speak up about the project. In conversations on NextDoor, some people from outside of the neighborhood didn't understand why putting the facility there was a problem. "In what neighborhood should these children live?" asked one person. Another said: "These juveniles need to be put somewhere."

Almost each time Gilmore argued that their neighborhood shouldn't be deemed a good fit simply because the state-owned building is already there.

Gilmore's not against young people getting treatment and services but is taken aback by a locked-down, secure facility in residents' front yards. She also wonders what will happen to youths once they age out of the program.

The building has to be brought up to code with a sprinkler system, smoke detector and alarm systems to operate as a residence again.

At a House subcommittee budget hearing in February, the Department of Legislative Services recommended cutting the $1.43 million design funds for the project. The concern was that the scope of the project and priorities for capital spending could change as the Department of Juvenile Services develops a new facility master plan.

Schiraldi requested to maintain the funding.

"We are committed to completing a facility master plan, but we can't envision a plan that does not include access to residential treatment in Baltimore City," Schiraldi said at the time.

The juvenile justice system has long struck a nerve with Maryland residents, with some calling for expanded consequences and others asking for rehabilitation over incarceration. Violent crimes committed by teens in the last few months have kept questions about the youth legal system at top of mind, including an attack of a 66-year-old man in Butchers Hill caught on a surveillance camera.

Joe Nathan Page, a longtime resident of Woodbourne-McCabe, doesn't think the treatment center is a step forward for the community.

"It seems like a Band-Aid on cancer to me," Page said.

Page bought his house in the Woodbourne-McCabe neighborhood 60 years ago and raised his seven children there. From his front porch, decorated with pots of flowers and a couple of disco balls, the retired baker can point to the newcomers, second-generation owners, and originals like himself. He believes the community has improved drastically and wants it to stay the course.

"We see this as a jail for juveniles right in the middle of the community where we are trying to raise families," Page said.

A few blocks away, Jane and Bill Blonder have lived in their "fixer-upper," steps away from the facility's sign since 1985. These days, Jane said, the foot traffic is light and only some times she'll see the kids transported in a black van to the back of the building.

Shortly after moving in, the Blonders put metal gates on their windows after noticing small items missing from their home. One time an abandoned stolen car blocked their driveway. They couldn't conclusively connect the incidents to the young people next door, but wondered. Bill Blonder describes the neighborhood as "so borderline" that it teeters between good and bad and wonders if having a secured facility "would tip the balance."

Jane Blonder is also concerned about the attention the facility could attract.

The department is supposed to submit a report back to the General Assembly that includes the community feedback from the listening sessions by Dec. 1, the department said.

During her recent rounds in the neighborhood, Gilmore visited the Blonders as they worked on their pale blue 1970 Volkswagen Beetle in their front yard. Though she couldn't make any promises, Gilmore tried to leave the immediate neighbors of the center with one thing she was sure of.

"I'm fighting as much as I can," Gilmore said.