“It is a moral failure for young people to become system-involved in the first place,” said Alice Wilkerson, executive director of Advance Maryland and the Advance Maryland Education Fund, reflecting a perspective shared by many youth justice advocates. Her organization is a member of the Maryland Youth Justice Coalition, which advocates for policies aimed at keeping youth out of adult court, expanding rehabilitative services, and centering the voices of system-involved young people and their families. While this work plays an important role in supporting children involved in the justice system, like many nonprofits, it operates within a broader system that is often strained by limited resources and overwhelming demand.
Across Washington, D.C. and the broader United States, a significant but often underexamined challenge in the juvenile justice system is limited access to meaningful legal representation for young people. Because most justice-involved youth cannot afford private attorneys, they must rely on public defenders and nonprofit legal aid organizations, both of which are critically overburdened. The U.S. Department of Justice pointed out that in some jurisdictions, annual caseloads range from 500 to 900 felony cases and up to 2,000 misdemeanors. This is five to six times the maximum number of cases recommended by the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. Sometimes, case loads are so high that defenders average just seven minutes per case. This can limit the attention given to individual cases, which raises important questions about the system’s ability to provide consistent representation. Courts in Oregon, for example, were forced to dismiss more than 1,400 criminal cases because the state could not provide defendants with public defenders in a timely manner. This left individuals waiting months or even years for legal representation. In 2025, the crisis became so severe in San Francisco, where the public defender’s office began refusing new cases one day each week, warning that taking on more clients would compromise their ability to provide adequate representation. Public Defender Mano Raju said it would be unethical to take on more cases under those conditions. These examples point to systemic challenges that directly impact juvenile courts as well, where youth rely on the same overextended public defense infrastructure.
For Carnissa Lucas-Smith, a former public defender, the strain was personal. She left her position because the number of cases she was assigned made her work unattainable. “I think it was hard to balance,” she said. “Because whenever you’re working on one case, you’re taking time away from another case.” Her days consisted of overlapping court hearings, rushed lunches, and back-to-back proceedings. She had to prioritize the most urgent issues, while sidelining the rest, often left wondering whether she could have done more.
For justice-involved youth, these challenges may have particularly significant consequences. Delays caused by overburdened attorneys can increase time spent in pretrial detention, disrupt education and family life, and pressure young people into decisions, such as waiving their right to counsel, without fully understanding the consequences. While nonprofits and advocacy coalitions work to fill these gaps by providing specialized legal support, policy advocacy, and holistic services, they cannot substitute for a system that, in many places, remains under-resourced.
From a Christian perspective, justice is understood as rooted in dignity, restoration, and care for the vulnerable. Scripture affirms that children are not merely smaller adults, but image-bearers who are still forming spiritually. A justice system aligned with these principles would prioritize rehabilitation over punishment, ensure meaningful access to representation, and support young people in taking accountability while continuing to grow.
However, in practice, gaps at both the individual and systemic level can undermine this vision. Alice noted that one of the most pressing issues facing justice-involved youth in Maryland is the state’s practice of automatically charging many children as adults. Adult court proceedings are time-intensive and expensive, making private legal representation out of reach for most families. As a result, most justice-involved youth are represented by public defenders who are well-equipped but often overworked, managing overwhelming caseloads.
The adult court process creates numerous opportunities for delay, and overloaded public defenders can contribute to extended pretrial detention. Access to meaningful legal counsel remains inconsistent. Many young people waive their right to an attorney without fully understanding the consequences. In some jurisdictions in the United States, more than half of justice-involved youth appear without any legal representation during proceedings, particularly in lower-level or early-stage proceedings such as detention hearings and status offense cases. Without counsel, these young people are often expected to speak for themselves before a judge, respond to legal questions, and make decisions that carry long-term consequences despite lacking the knowledge or developmental capacity to fully understand the process. In places like Ohio, for example, a report found that two-thirds of children who were the subject of delinquency or unruly complaints resolved in 2004, faced proceedings without a lawyer. This highlights how widespread this issue can be at the local level. In other jurisdictions, the issue is not the absence of counsel, but the widespread waiver of that right. National research shows that in some areas, as many as 80% to 90% of youth waive their right to an attorney, often without consulting a lawyer beforehand. States including Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska, and Ohio have documented extremely high waiver rates, with some jurisdictions approaching 90%. Without reliable access to sufficient defense, many youth face greater risk of adverse outcomes. This raises concerns about whether the system fully protects children’s dignity and due process.
One response to these challenges can be seen in the work of nonprofits and advocacy coalitions such as the Maryland Youth Justice Coalition. These groups amplify the voices of justice-involved youth, advance policy reform, and ensure that young people are treated as children with the capacity for growth rather than as permanent offenders. When attorneys are responsible for hundreds of clients at a time, meaningful representation becomes difficult. This is not because of a lack of commitment, but because of structural limitations. In this context, nonprofits play a critical role by providing supplemental support, advocating for reduced caseloads, and pushing for reforms that allow defenders the time and capacity to treat each young person as more than just another case. Recent policy efforts, including the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), reflect growing recognition of these challenges by encouraging stronger standards and support for youth defense systems. Still, lasting change depends on continued reform that directly addresses the structural causes of overworked public defenders and inconsistent access to counsel.
Alice explained that “the faith community plays a very important role in continuing to call out the moral failure.” As Christians, we must speak out against the ways in which justice-involved youth are failed. Both public institutions and civil society have a role in repairing what is broken. Government action is essential. This includes setting enforceable caseload limits for public defenders, increasing investment in public defense systems, expanding access to counsel at every stage of proceedings, and strengthening federal and state standards through legislation like the JJDPA. The current standards, first adopted in 1974, have remained largely unchanged, even as legal work has become more complex with technological advancements, including the need to analyze video and digital evidence. This has increased the time required for each case. Recognizing this shift, new proposed standards aim to substantially reduce allowable caseloads by approximately two-thirds for felonies and more than half for misdemeanors. Such structural changes are essential to ensuring that defenders have the time and resources necessary to provide meaningful representation.
Civil society must also respond by advocating for policy change, providing financial and volunteer support, and partnering with nonprofits to sustain their work. As Alice noted, “This is an area where we have tremendous support from the faith community,” and the Maryland Youth Coalition itself includes many faith leaders. Churches, faith-based organizations, and community members can support these efforts by volunteering or providing financial contributions. Civil society can also help to keep the system grounded in a vision that centers children rather than efficiency. One practical way to engage, as Alice suggests, is by contacting local legislators to express concern about juvenile justice policies and outcomes for youth. Together, government and civil society can work toward a system that better supports both public defenders and the youth they serve.
Despite these challenges, Alice Wilkerson remains hopeful. “We are seeing reforms work.” Meaningful change is possible when advocacy, policy, and community support come together with a shared commitment to the value of every young person. At its core, this issue raises questions about how society supports and protects its most vulnerable children. Recent debates point to the need to reform an overburdened defense system that can limit the ability of public defenders to provide meaningful representation. Proverbs 31:8 calls us to “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.” For Christians, that call includes advocating for justice-involved youth and supporting those who are speaking up for those rights. It is easy to lose sight of why the work matters, but, as Alice put it plainly, “we are talking about children.”
Acacia Tripplett was the Summer 2025 Families Valued Intern at the Center for Public Justice. She is graduating from George Washington University with a BA in Political Science and Psychology. She plans to pursue a God-centered career focused on helping others, protecting rights, and uplifting the stories of all people.
Graphic by Center for Public Justice / Source Photo by Pgiam from Getty Images Signature, accessed with Canva Pro.
