Chronic Troubles At Youth Jails Haunt Campaign

When the $60 million Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center opened in 2003, it was hailed as the kind of solution Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) had promised when he campaigned for office.

Within a year, independent monitors were describing conditions there as bad as those in the state's most notorious juvenile jails. A U.S. Justice Department report this summer found that the center has failed to "adequately protect children from youth violence."

When Cheltenham Youth Facility shut down several of its dilapidated cottages in January 2004, advocates heralded a move toward smaller, more specialized centers. But today, some of the state's jails remain so crowded that teenagers sleep on the floor.

As Ehrlich faces a tough fight for reelection this fall, his bold promises to fix one of Maryland's most troubled systems have vexed his campaign.

"The system has gotten worse in the last four years," Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, Ehrlich's Democratic challenger, said in a recent interview. "We're writing off too many young lives."

The governor defends his efforts, saying in a recent debate, "We have made great strides on our juvenile justice system. We've changed the whole paradigm there."

Ehrlich did not mince words about the troubled system when he ran for governor four years ago and laid the blame squarely on his Democratic opponent, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. As lieutenant governor, Townsend had taken on juvenile justice as a priority.

But problems with violence and mismanagement ran deep in many of the nearly two dozen state-run facilities entrusted with more than 2,000 young offenders. The state's juvenile boot camps had been shut down because of brutality.

"The history of juvenile services in Maryland -- up to and including the present," Ehrlich asserted then, "is one of devastating dysfunction that has ruined children's lives."

The Republican who would become the next governor promised a new era and a "child first" approach. He would rename, and redeem, the Department of Juvenile Justice.

But violence and trouble persist. Inspections continue to reveal dangerous conditions, staff shortages, chaotic classrooms, mismanagement and crowding. Despite a boot camp debacle in the past, Ehrlich's administration, too, tried the military approach, with bad consequences.

Officials at what is now called the Department of Juvenile Services say there were no quick fixes for the broken system and the damaged children they oversee, but they can point to some hopeful signs.