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The Executive Committee of Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice decries the discovery of a

children's cemetery for Black youth in custody near the Cheltenham Youth Detention Center

and applauds Senator Will Smith’s proposal to reform Maryland’s Automatic Transfer Law.

On a neglected stretch of land behind the Cheltenham Youth Facility in Prince George’s County, a grim discovery has come to light: a burial ground for children once held at the “Blacks-only” youth prison. A few graves are marked. Most are not. What they have in common is that the state confined these children, failed to protect them, and then allowed them to disappear—first in life, and then in death.

Cheltenham was created after the Civil War to move Black youth out of adult jails in Maryland. Yet today, more than 150 years later, Black children are still being pushed into adult systems—only now under the legal fiction of “automatic transfer.”

Maryland law currently requires that certain youth accused of specific offenses be automatically prosecuted in adult court, without a hearing, without consideration of their individual circumstances, and without judicial discretion. About 1,000 youth every year—92% of them Black or Latino—are subjected to this automatic prosecution. As a result, Maryland transfers more children to adult court per capita than any other state except Alabama.

This practice is a direct continuation of the same racially inequitable logic that created Cheltenham in the first place: that Black children are different - more dangerous, more culpable, and less deserving of care - than white children.

On Thursday, July 17, Maryland State Senator Will Smith, Chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, visited the Cheltenham burial ground and announced his plan to introduce legislation to reform Maryland’s automatic transfer statute. He also called for public hearings on both the state’s history of youth incarceration and the persistent racial disparities that define its current justice system.

We at Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice (YCLJ) commend Senator Smith for his courage and clarity. Reforming the automatic waiver law is not only urgent—it is long overdue.

“This moment lays bare the lie that our current laws are race-neutral,” said David Muhammad, Executive Director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform and YCLJ Steering Committee member. “Black youth in Maryland are still being cast out of the juvenile system and into adult punishment—just through new mechanisms.”

“We’ve known for decades that prosecuting youth as adults is ineffective, harmful, and racially unjust,” said Gladys Carrión, former Commissioner of the New York State Office of Children and Family Services. “That we continue to do so in 2025 speaks to the deep resistance to seeing Black and brown children as children.”

“I resigned from Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services because I was concerned that the state was often more interested in appearing tough on crime than in protecting kids,” said Vinny Schiraldi, former DJS Secretary and YCLJ co-founder. “It shouldn’t take a graveyard to get us to change—but now that we’ve found one, we have no excuse.”

Marc Schindler, former Maryland Assistant Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Department of Juvenile Services, put it plainly: “Senator Smith’s effort to reform automatic transfer is a necessary reckoning with both the past and the present. It’s not reform for reform’s sake—it’s about ending policies that were racially biased by design.”

Reforming this law would restore basic fairness and due process for children facing the most serious consequences. It would give judges—not prosecutors—the power to decide whether a young person belongs in the adult system. It would align Maryland’s laws with developmental science, national best practices, and fundamental justice.

The graves at Cheltenham are a symbol—but they are not just history. They are a warning. If we fail to act now, we are not simply repeating old mistakes—we are perpetuating a system that was built on the backs of Black children and still depends on their continued punishment.

Let us not bury this truth again. Let us finally reform Maryland’s automatic transfer law and treat every child as a child—under law, in policy, and in practice. 

About the Authors

Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice (YCLJ) is a national network of current and former youth justice leaders dedicated to transforming how systems treat young people. Learn more at www.yclj.org.