More News

Gov. Martin O'Malley has taken public pride in his administration with regards to public safety. He has touted his self-styled successes, while ignoring the realities of his administration's mismanaged failures. Gov. O'Malley has promised Maryland many things, but the most troubling broken promises are those he made regarding the safety and security of our children.

Since the O'Malley administration took office, it has ignored at least three laws designed to protect our children from sexual predators and repeat abusers. Offenders have been released without the benefit of mental health risk assessments, required by a law passed in 2007. Child-sex offenders also have been released from prison and into our communities without the extended supervision required under another existing law intended to prevent future assaults. A board to be appointed by the governor, designed to create strategies for dealing with sexual offenders, has never even met under this administration.

Now the General Assembly is preparing again to enact laws to further protect our citizens and our children from the criminals who seek to do them harm. It is imperative upon the O'Malley administration to ensure that this time, the laws endorsed by the representatives of the people are carried out. We don't need the governor to propose new laws as much as we need him to enforce existing law.

Now consider the failures in Maryland's juvenile justice system. Since the O'Malley administration took office, there have been more than 100 escapes and AWOLs from Maryland's juvenile justice facilities. There have been numerous assaults on children in the care of the system and on employees of the department. In July, a juvenile being monitored by the department shot and critically wounded 5-year-old Raven Wyatt. Most recently, a teacher at the Cheltenham juvenile justice facility was murdered — the suspect is a 13-year-old juvenile in department custody. These are serious indications of a dysfunctional and mismanaged system.

In a particularly horrifying survey released in January by the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 30 percent of youths at the Backbone Mountain Youth Center in Western Maryland reported being sexually victimized by staff. That survey interviewed youths at 195 facilities nationwide, and only six had sexual abuse rates of 30 percent or higher, with the Maryland facility being one of the worst in the country.

Twice in the past two years, the House Republican Caucus has called for accountability from the administration for failures in the juvenile justice system. In July, the response from Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Donald DeVore to concerns that I and others in the legislature were raising about these problems indicated a complete denial of the mismanagement under his leadership. He led us to believe that reports of trouble in this badly broken system were exaggerated. This kind of response is hardly indicative of the kind of accountability promised by Gov. O'Malley.

The Department of Juvenile Services is an executive branch agency, and its secretary serves at the pleasure of the governor. The state of affairs at DJS is untenable, and it is time for the governor to act with resolve and executive leadership.

I have therefore called upon Gov. O'Malley to ask for the resignation of Secretary DeVore, and for him to appoint a new administrator and a new leadership team for the Department of Juvenile Services. The governor needs a department head who will respond to the failures of the system and, most importantly, the needs of the children in the system, the employees of the system and the community that depends on the system.

Gov. O'Malley's administration has failed in its essential duty to ensure public safety by adequately administering the Department of Juvenile Services. It must act to stop further damage to the children of Maryland in a mismanaged system.

Gov. O'Malley cannot be allowed to continue to choose what he will take credit for and what he will blame on others — he must take credit for the whole of his administration's actions, or lack thereof, especially where public safety and juvenile services are concerned.

Del. Anthony J. O'Donnell (R-Dist. 29C) of Lusby is House minority leader in the General Assembly.