Sen. Smith: Maryland’s Youth Are Ready for Reform

My colleagues and I sat captivated as Dwayne Betts, published poet and Yale Law School graduate, told his story in the three short minutes we allocated. The Juvenile Justice Reform Council (JJRC) was meeting again to figure out how to repair Maryland’s juvenile justice system. Betts bitterly noted how he felt the legal system threw the 16-year-old version of himself in prison for eight years without giving his case much more time than we gave him that day.