Maryland agencies, academic institutions, and community partners are joining forces to reform the state’s justice system. The new Maryland Justice Partnership will work to address issues such as ending the automatic charging of children as adults as well as root causes of crime. After d ecades of studies and reports, Maryland State Public Defender Natasha M. Dartigue said the partnership “is shifting from analysis to action at the exact moment where change is possible.”  “New leadership means new opportunities, but opportunity without coordination is wasted,” Dartigue said at a press conference Monday. “So we are launching MJP now to ensure that this particular legislative session also delivers results, not simply more promises.” The partnership will comprise six “hubs,” or focus areas to guide the work of representatives from state agencies, community organizations, academic institutions, and policy leaders. Those six hubs include: community safety and crisis response; crime justice and diversion; behavioral health justice; sentencing and parole reform; community reintegration and stability; youth justice and educational equity. The Office of the Public Defender will coordinate the hubs, including structure, timelines and transparency, but won’t direct or control their work, said Kirsten Gettys Downs, Director of Systemic Reform at the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. “Implementation is values made visible,” Downs said. “We want to make sure that the values of reducing mass incarceration, community voices in public initiatives, as well as working together to actually make change that has been going on for centuries, that we are in position to be able to move those needles in those areas.” The Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative, a separate partnership, made 18 justice-related recommendations in 2025.  Some of those recommendations informed new Maryland laws, like legislation requiring the state education department to provide guidance on addressing and correcting harmful behavior in schools through a restorative approach, rather than criminalization. Others failed to pass, like a bill that would have ended Maryland’s practice of automatically charging children as adults for certain serious offenses. “We cannot afford to stall again,” Dartigue said. The justice system in Maryland disproportionately touches the lives of Black children and adults. The Maryland Justice Partnership seeks to improve racial equity. Maryland ranks second in the nation, behind Alabama, in automatically charging children as adults. Of the children who are automatically charged as adults in Maryland, 81% are Black even though only 30% of Maryland’s population is Black, Dartigue said. She added that the partnership’s work will also help uphold fiscal responsibility. “Maryland wastes approximately $120,000 per child in the automatic charging of children, and this is in light of the fact that approximately 85% of the cases are ultimately dismissed or transferred,” she said. The partnership will involve state agencies such as Maryland’s departments of education, corrections, health and labor. Academic partners include Morgan State University, University of Baltimore, and Bowie State University. Their work will include “ending the automatic charging of children as adults, reducing pretrial detention behind the charges, reforming parole and probation practices, expanding diversion and treatment programs, as well as addressing the root causes of crime rather than only punishment,” Dartigue said.  “The bottom line for Marylanders is this: safer communities, smart use of tax dollars, and a system that treats people, especially children, with dignity, while holding people accountable in ways that actually work,” she said. ...read more read less