An Associated Press story about the sharp reduction in Baltimore juveniles being held in adult detention facilities quotes OSI-Baltimore Criminal and Juvenile Justice Director Tara Huffman and Christina Williams, director of public policy for OSI grantee Community Law In Action (CLIA), which was founded by 1999 OSI Community Fellow Terry Hickey, who is now director of Mayor Pugh’s Office of Human Services.
With OSI support, CLIA led efforts to change state policy and ultimately, the law, effectively ending the policy of holding juveniles in state facilities. As Huffman explains in the piece:
“(Young children) are still growing and thanks to brain imaging and MRIs, we can now say that the young person’s brain does not look like the adult brain.”