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Looking to beat back a spike in crime, Montgomery County is rolling out a three-pronged strategy that will add "new tools" to keep violent and repeat criminals off the streets.

Beginning next month, county officers will refer all suspects charged with violent crimes to federal immigration agents for possible deportation. The county is also lobbying state officials to make it harder for chronic juvenile offenders to qualify for release pending trial. And to bring Maryland's penal system in line with most other states, county leaders are backing legislation in Annapolis to require convicted criminals to serve more of their prison terms.

While the new approach to the county's simmering immigration debate has drawn the most attention, the intent all along was to launch the "three parallel initiatives," in response to a trend of repeat offenders that "came into focus" early last year, county Police Chief J. Thomas Manger told Gazette editors and reporters Monday.

"The longer that they're behind bars, the safer our neighborhoods are," Manger said Monday, a week after he, County Executive Isiah Leggett and county State's Attorney John McCarthy unveiled the strategy.

The county will begin the new immigration policy next month, the other two prongs of the strategy require approval from the state.

New tack on immigration

A pair of murders in the fall allegedly committed by illegal immigrants — especially the shooting death of a 14-year-old honor student on a Ride On bus in Silver Spring — ignited an outcry for reform.

Manger is adamant that the new immigration policy was driven solely by need, not clamor. But he also said he knows that such a proposal would have gone nowhere a year or two ago.

"My catalyst for this was not an immigration issue by any means," Manger said. "I just really felt this was the time to get it done."

Meeting for months, Manger, McCarthy, County Attorney Leon Rodriguez and corrections Director Arthur M. Wallenstein hammered out a range of options for Leggett to consider. Leggett chose the option of sending the names of people charged in violent and gun crimes to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Manger said ICE officials have assured him that the process will run smoothly. Repeated attempts to reach ICE for comment were unsuccessful.

The changes have been met with tacit approval of immigrant advocates, who agree that it is far better than what they thought was coming. The largest challenge is in getting the immigrant community to buy into the change, said Candace Kattar, executive director of Identity Inc., a Gaithersburg-based advocacy group for at-risk youth.

"All it will take is one incident, in a particular community, someone is arrested and ends up in the hands of immigration, and it's going to spread that the police are turning people over and it's going to be misunderstood," Kattar said.

Manger and other officials are readying an "education blitz" to convince the county's nearly 300,000 immigrants that police are not acting as immigration agents. Because the immigrant community is disproportionately victim of crime, Manger is hoping that to some degree, the drop in crime will win them over.

"I'm convinced that there's people in neighborhoods in Langley Park, undocumented residents, that are just trying to make a better life for themselves, working their tails off, not committing any crimes, just trying to make a better life for themselves, their family, their kids, that are saying, ‘You know what, I'm glad these people are out of our neighborhood,'" Manger said.

Treating juveniles differently

The county effort to change the policy on holding juveniles who are repeat offenders mirrors a recent successful effort by Baltimore County, said Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger.

"Our office and the police do believe better decisions are being made on who should be detained and who shouldn't be," Shellenberger said. Some juveniles who were caught for crimes would brag to the officers that they would be back on the streets within four hours.

Montgomery County wants to adopt a similar Risk Assessment Instrument to what Baltimore County uses to determine who is held and who is released to a parent or guardian. Juveniles charged with such crimes as robberies, car thefts and gang activity are likelier to be detained than under the current standard.

In revising its policy, Baltimore County worked for several months with the state Department of Juvenile Services to demonstrate the need and how the effort would work.

Secretary of Juvenile Services Donald W. DeVore said the state is willing to work with Montgomery County to implement a policy similar to Baltimore County's.

DeVore met earlier with Manger and McCarthy and is expected to meet with them again today.

"Our number one goal is public safety," DeVore said. "But there's a process to get through to make sure what you're doing will have the greatest impact on reducing crime."

Good behavior

The third prong in the county's crime plan is making sure inmates serve longer sentences, Manger said.

Inmates can cut their prison terms in half through good behavior. That system of "diminution credits" came under fire after the April 2008 murder of a 25-year-old Gaithersburg woman at the hands of a repeat violent offender who had gotten out of jail in 2006 after serving six years of a 12-year sentence.

This General Assembly session, a number of bills look to curtail the practice of giving convicts "diminution credits."

With the backing of Manger and Leggett, Sen. Nancy King has proposed a law that would require violent offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence, a threshold that 30 other states use.

The bill, which has seven co-sponsors, is heading for a March 18 Judiciary Committee hearing, where King (D-Dist. 39) of Montgomery Village expects it will face tough questions, including about the cost.

"To keep people in jail longer costs money," King said. "And in bad fiscal times, people are telling me this is not really the time to be doing that. But where do you draw the line in paying the extra money to keep them incarcerated, and people getting credits for just standing in line when they tell you to? Do you want these people back out in the community?"