Maryland lawmakers want fewer teenagers automatically charged as adults, reserving that escalation for only the most serious crimes, according to a bill proposed in this year’s legislative session.

Bill sponsor Sen. Will Smith said cases that start in the juvenile system result in better outcomes for teenagers, less recidivism and increased public safety. He said Maryland must reframe the conversation around youth justice issues.

“You’re going to get better public safety outcomes when you get youths to the services and the supports that they need,” the Montgomery County Democrat said at a legislative rally in January.

Maryland automatically charges older teens as adults for a variety of crimes, including some that carry a life sentence. But teens awaiting adult criminal proceedings don’t receive rehabilitative services, unlike in the juvenile system.

If a teen charged as an adult is found guilty or has their case dismissed, they seldom receive services such as therapy.

Smith proposes returning all but the most serious charges — rape and murder, for example — to the juvenile court’s jurisdiction.

Maryland lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully to pass similar legislation for years. Past iterations have attempted to divert all charges for minors to the youth legal system and have raised opposition from state’s attorneys.

Smith’s version will be heard Wednesday by the committee he chairs, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

“I deeply believe that we need to end the practice of auto-charging” youth as adults, Smith said.

The practice remains the status quo in Maryland and has given the state one of the highest rates in the country of prisoners who were sentenced as children, according to a 2023 report.

Black children make up the majority of those who enter the adult system in Maryland, and they remain overrepresented in every step of the state’s youth legal system, from arrest to adjudication.

An independent analysis found Smith’s bill, should it become law, could save the juvenile services department around $17 million during its first full budget year and cut costs for state-funded legal defense and psychological services. Some of that savings, though, could be offset by an increased need for rehabilitative services.

Smith said any new legislation should balance public safety without overburdening the understaffed Department of Juvenile Services.

“We have to strike a balance between correcting some of the past injustices and making sure that we have a more equitable justice system,” he said.

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender and Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland have made the bill legislative priorities, but the professional association of state’s attorneys will oppose this year’s bill.

Rich Gibson, Howard County state’s attorney and president of the Maryland State’s Attorneys Association, said prosecutors are opposed to heaping more work on a juvenile services agency that may not be ready.

“Show us you can do well with what you have, and we can give you more,” Gibson said.

Smith’s bill is the latest chapter in Maryland’s push-pull approach to reform its treatment of young people accused of crimes. Last year, Smith sponsored juvenile legislation that rolled back certain laws and expanded criminal charges to children as young as age 10 for some crimes and gave courts and prosecutors more say over certain cases.

This year’s measure comes as the state faces a $3 billion budget deficit and federal policy changes that could threaten the state’s economic outlook.

Some question whether a measure to trim the list of crimes for which teens are automatically charged as adults has much of a chance this year. Others say it can’t happen soon enough.

“The right time for this was 20 years ago, but the next best is today,” said Josh Rovner, director of youth justice at The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit advocacy group studying the effects of the criminal justice system on youth and adults.

Rovner said decades of evidence show the adult system is not built for children and that research has shown the vast majority of Maryland cases of teens charged as adults eventually end up back in the youth system, with young defendants missing out on services along the way.

Rovner said the state’s embattled youth services agency could absorb the changes in Smith’s proposal. Since most of the cases involving young people charged as adults are eventually reverted, the department is already handling most of them, he said.

“None of this is to say that DJS is doing a perfect job, but it is better than the adult system is,” he said.