A Maryland office received $622,883 from the Department of Justice to help youth escape drug and mental health problems but hardly served any clients, a federal watchdog agency found.
The state’s Office of the Public Defender never found an approved mental health agency to treat the children despite spending all the money between 2020 and 2025, the DOJ’s inspector general office said in a Thursday report. The Maryland agency has repeatedly argued for such treatments as alternatives to incarceration, referring to young criminals as “justice-involved youth” in comments to local officials.
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