The heating system at a Maryland youth jail has been broken for weeks — causing the dozens of young people incarcerated there to endure frigid temperatures as the weather outside plummeted below freezing or near it, the state’s top public defender said at a news conference Monday.
Youth justice advocates and representatives from the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and state employee union AFSCME said the Youth Detention Facility in Baltimore city has been without a functioning heating system in the male housing unit and gymnasium since at least the week of Thanksgiving.
“When the heat failed, children were left freezing. The state acted with no urgency,” said Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, whose attorneys began investigating the heating issues in response to family complaints. “Maryland, we can absolutely do better.”
The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which oversees the adult prison system and operates this facility, said that four industrial-grade electric heaters in the male housing units were brought in over the weekend, which raised temperatures in that area. Officials said they expect repairs to the heating system to be complete by the end of this week.
Dartigue said temperatures inside had dipped into the 50s and that young people were given thin hospital blankets to stay warm until state officials were pressured to do more.
A DPSCS spokesperson said it’s not clear when the system first broke but that it became clear in the last week that the heat issue needed to be addressed. The agency disputed Dartigue’s characterization of the severity of the problem, saying temperatures have been consistently in the 60s during that time period. Officials are working “around-the-clock to restore full heat” and have provided “additional blankets and warm clothing as needed,” the agency said.
“From the immediate start, our focus has been maintaining safe, stable conditions while moving as quickly as is legally and logistically possible to complete this repair,” DPSCS Secretary Carolyn J. Scruggs said in a statement.
At the news conference Monday, advocates said that state leaders under the administrations of former governor Larry Hogan (R) and Gov. Wes Moore (D) had failed to prioritize the safety and care of the young people in state custody.
First, advocates said, those administrations had chronically underfunded or deferred critical maintenance projects at numerous state facilities, including the Baltimore youth detention facility. Second, they said, the administrations have chosen to uphold the state’s longtime practice of automatically charging young people as adults — which places them at the Youth Detention Facility instead of within the care of the state’s Department of Juvenile Services.
Most of those held at the Youth Detention Facility are teens who have been charged as adults and are awaiting trial. More than 80 percent of those automatically charged as adults are eventually deferred back to the juvenile court system or have their charges dismissed altogether, but only after they’ve spent months in detention facilities that aren’t designed for rehabilitation, advocates said.
A spokesperson for Moore declined to comment, referring questions to DPSCS.
For years, there has been a groundswell of support from public defenders, high-profile judges, state reform commissions and youth justice advocates to end — or at minimum reform — the state’s practice of automatically charging young people as adults. Top prosecutors have opposed that effort and it has repeatedly failed to move forward in the General Assembly, though lawmakers have indicated they’ll once again take up the issue during the 2026 legislative session.
“It’s completely unacceptable,” said Del. Caylin Young (D-Baltimore City) at Monday’s news conference, calling on those in Annapolis to do a better job of listening to advocates. “We as adults … should be ashamed of ourselves.”
Nick Maroney, who led the state’s Juvenile Justice Monitoring Unit for 10 years and retired this spring, said the Youth Detention Facility has a long history of ongoing issues, including insufficient mental health resources, a lack of physical activity options for young people and chronic overcrowding.
“The big question is: Why are these kids stuck here in the first place?” Maroney asked.
James Dold with Human Rights for Kids called the conditions at the Youth Detention Facility “shameful” and violations of the young people’s constitutional rights. He directly called on the governor’s office to get involved.
“Gov. Moore has to own this,” Dold said. “The Moore administration has to own this.”
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