We heard from young men who are locked up in Maryland for serious crimes like robbery and assault. Now we hear from a key official with a lo
Vincent Schiraldi
SCHIRALDI: We had a simultaneous, very substantial reduction in the number of kids who are locked up, 70% from 2000 to 2020. And we had about an 80-plus percent decline in arrests of juveniles during that period of time. So it was kind of a virtuous cycle - fewer kids getting arrested, fewer kids getting locked up and learning. Then we had this pandemic. Kids were disrupted from schools. Parents were losing their jobs. Mental health issues were sort of increasing for both the young people and their families and their neighborhoods. People started to arm themselves in those neighborhoods, mostly adults but sometimes kids. And when you have a lot of people with a lot of frustration, with a lot of guns in their pockets, you stop having fistfights, and you start having shootouts.