Sample Solution

During this assessment, stakeholders hypothesized that the difference in authorized formal referrals for felony referrals might be driven by differences in the handling of felony drug cases between Baltimore and the rest of the state. While this may not fully account for the difference for felony referrals overall, data confirm that 16% of felony drug referrals in the rest of Maryland were resolved or informaled at intake, while only 5% of felony drug referrals in Baltimore City were diverted. It is important to note that Maryland state law requires that SAO must authorize any informal handling of felony cases at DJS intake, so it is possible that this difference is a result of differences in SAO decisionmaking rather than decisions made by DJS intake officers regarding informal handling of this case type.

As illustrated above in Figure 2, the largest difference in percentage of formaled intake referrals between Baltimore City and the rest of Maryland was for misdemeanor referrals. In the rest of Maryland, only 35% of misdemeanor referrals at DJS Intake were authorized for a formal petition. In Baltimore City, however, that percentage was significantly higher, with 52% of intake cases formaled.

As depicted in Figure 3 below, the percent of formaled misdemeanor referrals in Baltimore City is consistently higher across all misdemeanor categories when compared to the rest of Maryland. The largest difference is for unspecified misdemeanors and drug misdemeanors. It is difficult to draw conclusions from the comparison for unspecified misdemeanor cases, as there was a very small num