The Birth of 24 and None

                                                                                                                The Gap 

Until October 2020, Maryland lacked an organization that focused exclusively on advocating for the transformation of the youth criminal legal system. The lack of impacted voices in the reform space is part of what led Human Rights for Kids to declare Maryland among the six worst states for how it handles the human rights of children involved in the criminal-legal system. Maryland has no minimum age for a child to be arrested and charged, children as young as 14 can be automatically charged in adult court, subjected to substandard conditions of confinement, and met with a reintegration plan that generally reintegrates them back into the legal system instead of their communities. 

​

                                                                                                             The Moment 

​

During COVID, the Maryland juvenile system shrunk significantly. Arrests of young people under the age of  18 dropped significantly and the average daily population (ADP) for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) juvenile jails declined by more than 55%. The youth prison population declined by  2/3. In addition, for the last two years the MD General Assembly has convened the Juvenile Justice Reform Council(JJRC) who have made recommendations that include significant reforms, which have not been acted upon yet. The combination of a body empaneled to reform the system, combined with  historic drops in youth prison populations and low arrest rates allowed for a radical reimagining that would not have been possible even two years ago.  

​

                                                                                                             Our Start

​

In 2020, the Association for the Public Defender of Maryland (APDM) applied for a National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) mini-grant to establish a youth-led organization to end the criminalization of youth in Maryland. To design and begin the organization, Taz Gaines was hired to serve as the first project coordinator. To support the needs of participants and provide needed support to the internal strategic process, Taz was supported by, Jamesha Caldwell (she/her), a 2020 Notre Dame Graduate.  For the first cohort, we recruited 4 Baltimore youth to pilot the program. The young people met bimonthly virtually throughout COVID and we used the initial mini-grant to build our organization name, mission, purpose, and the blueprint for our curriculum. The four young people engaged in lessons centered on personal transformation, community building, and action. For the first order of business, to establish a name, young people reflected on their experiences and remembered the phrase "23 + 1" – damaging confinement 23 hours a day with 1 hour for recreation.

The first cohort decided they wanted to establish a future for young people in Maryland where they experience 24 hours of freedom and no time locked in solitary. And just like that, 24+None was born.  

​

​