Over a long and brilliant career, Vinny Schiraldi has demonstrated a rare combination of experience, skill, passion, commitment, knowledge, courage and perseverance. He exemplifies exactly the kind of principled leadership so necessary and at risk during these times of conflict, cynicism, and crisis.
Vinny just announced his decision to step down from his role as the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. This is a huge loss for Maryland and for anyone who cares about troubled young people, their families and their communities.
Following the severe pandemic that forced a cutback in community services and supports for families and young people, the long and dramatic decrease in youth crime was reversed in Maryland and in almost every other state, including an uptick in gun violence and auto thefts. Despite the twenty-plus years of steady decline in youth crime and ample evidence that reliance on punitive incarceration not only harms young people but actually leads to more crime, public officials and some media called for a return to the 1990s era of mass incarceration, stoking fear and anger rather than urging careful thought and planning.
Even as youth crime rates returned to the almost 25-year pattern of steady decline by 2024, politicians continued to rely on the call to get tough with kids by locking more of them away, whether that approach works or not. We know over-incarceration wastes taxpayer resources and devastates human lives.
With all this, the accomplishments of Vinny and his team are all the more impressive. A few examples include:
- Vinny and his team tackled gun violence head-on by identifying the communities with the highest rates of youth-involved shootings—whether victims or perpetrators—and the individual young people at highest risk. The Thrive Academy began with the four Maryland counties that accounted for more than 80% of youth involved in gun violence. DJS then launched a full-court press to wrap services, supports and supervision around these young people. The result? Fewer than 2% percent of these youth at high risk have been gun violence victims, with no homicides and 80% have not been arrested for a gun-related offense. Thrive Academy received the 2024 Innovation Inspiration Award from the Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators and is the first program of its kind where a juvenile justice agency employed strategies from the gun violence prevention field specifically for youth in the juvenile justice system.
- Vinny and his team also created wrap-around services and supports for young people charged with serious crimes who had initially been referred to adult court and who would have spent months in detention awaiting trial. This targeted approach also got good results: just 3 of the 63 young people engaged were rearrested and none failed to appear in court.
- Overall, this intensive focus on gun violence which was part of other efforts around the state contributed to a two-thirds drop in youth-involved shootings and a 45% reduction in youth homicides.
- Vinny and his team knew that a fundamental principle of rehabilitation for young people is providing hope and a path to a better future. For most young people sent to DJS, this means education and training for a good job, as well as activities that bring out their strengths and support their potential. Incarceration reinforces the destructive message that a young person is both worthless—with no chance of a good life—and dangerous. Positive programs, activities and supports work to change that message, showing young people that they matter and that they have immense potential.
- Vinny and his team recognized that community safety requires getting to the root of the problems that contribute to youth crime. DJS reached out to form new partnerships with agencies that affect families and communities as well as with young people and their families. The Departments of Human Services, Public Safety and Correctional Services, and Juvenile Services pooled information about families known to them and are now beginning to pool resources to do a better job of getting those families the help they need to support and guide their children. It’s a longer term strategy, of course—but that’s what it takes to really make a difference.
- By investing in recruitment and retention, they cut the vacancy rate from 18.5% to 5.9%—an almost 70% improvement. Another example: With Vinny’s leadership, DJS implemented evidence-based interventions for youth awaiting residential placement, so young people could begin treatment and get credit toward completing their sentence.
- Results matter. During Vinny’s all-too-brief leadership tenure, youth crime fell. Gun violence involving young people fell. Youth-involved auto thefts fell. Communities became more fully engaged. Resources were invested in programs that work. Not every problem was solved, not every young person was turned around, not every injustice was righted. But the Department was strengthened, problems were tackled, a culture of innovation and accountability for results was firmly rooted.
A truly great leader puts the organization first, especially when the organization’s mission is to improve the lives of young people and their families. Vinny concluded that the relentless attacks on his leadership were making it hard for the organization to continue to improve, and so he chose to step down. He recommended a terrific replacement in Betsy Fox Tolentino, who Governor Moore has announced as his successor. We can only hope she is given a chance to take the next steps in making the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services a model for the rest of the country.
In the meantime, we know Vinny, the founder of Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice will rejoin the work to fundamentally transform this nation’s approach to youth crime. Young people, families, communities and all of us need leaders like him more than ever. He inspires all of us to do more and to be better.
Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice is an organization of over 70 current and former leaders of youth justice systems. We’ve led public systems in states and cities across the country to provide more effective interventions for young people and their families.
Signed,
Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice