Thousands of delinquency cases come through the Maryland’s juvenile courts each year, and hundreds of youths are sent to treatment centers, where they live, attend classes and receive counseling. Within three years of their release, 56 percent will be arrested again.

“The recidivism rates tell us that our DJS system is not working,” says Angela Conyers Johnese, of Advocates for Children and Youth, a Baltimore nonprofit dedicated to children’s issues.

“There’s no area that’s more dysfunctional in the state,” says Maryland state Sen. Bobby Zirkin.

The goal of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services is not punishment. It is to make young people successful members of society. It aims to hold young offenders accountable. And it aims to ensure public safety.

But advocate groups, families and state officials agree that Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services is not meeting those goals. Sam J. Abed, who was named Maryland’s new secretary of the Department of Juvenile Services earlier this year, has yet to make sweeping changes.

Other states have revamped their systems and seen improvements. In Missouri, which advocates point to as a national model, less than 10 percent of youths who have been in treatment centers return to the Division of Youth Services.

In Baltimore alone, 4,700 cases were filed in 2010 in the city’s Juvenile Justice Center. Meanwhile, as legislators and advocates argue over how to fix the system, about 160,000 youths – some under arrest, some victims of abuse, some in foster care – troop through the state system every year.