BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Analysis of a lone letter urging Gov. Wes Moore to disregard calls for his juvenile justice chief’s immediate removal shows that many signers are strongly connected to organizations directly affiliated with the embattled secretary or benefiting from his agency’s new programming.
Dayvon Love, the director of public policy for the grassroots political think tank Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, shared in an interview with FOX45 News on Thursday that he has significant disagreements with how juvenile crime is covered in the news.
“Organizations like mine and many others have actually been able to push back effectively at what used to be a pretty dominate control that law enforcement, prosecutors had in the legislature as it relates to the policies that were feasible, viable in the legislature,” Love said. “[W]e just see the attacks on Schiraldi as kind of a stand-in as the kinds of attacks my organization and many others that signed onto that letter support.”
Love’s message is similar, but his organization uniquely stands apart from the 117 other signatories who wrote on Monday to Gov. Moore. Despite significant criticism of FOX45 News, Love was the only leader among the 45 organizations who signed the letter that responded to emailed questions or interview requests.
Vincent Schiraldi represents a progressive, a politically progressive, left-leaning perspective on dealing with juvenile justice in ways that we were super clear that again, those who are opponents of our policy agenda, Republicans and conservative Democrats, we see those are folks that would have issues with the kinds of policies that Schiraldi has championed in the past,” Love said.
The signatories wrote to Gov. Moore they were concerned about “recent sensationalized media coverage surrounding a small number of high-profile cases.” The letter urged the governor to resist calls to remove Secretary Vincent Schiraldi, the current leader of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (DJS).
“As policy experts, practitioners on the front lines of these challenges, youth-serving organizations, faith leaders, victim service providers, youth advocates, violence reduction specialists, and community leaders, we know how important it is to invest in the changes and long-term investments that are needed to see all our children, families, and communities success,” the letter said.
After the letter was released on Monday, some advocates took to social media to suggest a less universal condemnation of politics in their advocacy than Love told FOX45 News. Some letter signers took to social media to spread unfounded conspiracies claiming Schiraldi’s removal demands were being influenced by the state’s Republican Party.
Demands for Schiraldi’s removal have increased daily for the past two weeks from Baltimore neighborhood association leaders, a long list of law enforcement officials, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers and a resident’s online petition that had garnered over 3,000 signatures.
Juvenile crime and reports about dysfunction within DJS have dominated Maryland’s headlines since Schiraldi was appointed to lead the agency at the beginning of the Moore-Miller administration. These removal demands came to a boil last Friday when Schiraldi broke his long-held silence during hastily assembled individual news interviews with news organizations about stubbornly persistent juvenile crime and allegations of agency mismanagement.
Gov. Moore and Schiraldi’s offices released a nearly identical statement late last Friday claiming Maryland is not facing a juvenile crime crisis.
FOX45 News found that the letter supporting Schiraldi listed organizations directly associated with the secretary, receiving funding from DJS initiatives he launched or affiliated with far-progressive political advocacy organizations.
The letter also included signatures from organizations, with their leaders also signing individually to boost the signature count.
The Justice Policy Institute, founded by Schiraldi and where he served as executive director for four years before becoming Washington, D.C.’s director of the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, was one of the organizations that signed the letter.
The 2022 IRS tax forms obtained by FOX45 News showed that the organization is registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The tax returns indicate that Marc Schindler made $147,388 as the executive director in that year’s filing.
Schindler currently serves as DJS’s deputy secretary and chief of staff to Schiraldi.
FOX45 News previously reported that the Justice Policy Institute also employs Joel Caston as a “fellow,” according to its website and his LinkedIn account. Caston, a convicted murderer, was hired by Schiraldi as a special advisor to DJS’s newly formed “Core Innovation Team,” which is tasked with implementing changes at the state juvenile justice agency.
Catalyze Justice is another signer connected with Schiraldi. The organization supports Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice, a collective of justice leaders advocating for decarceration and placing justice-involved juveniles into their home communities rapidly after an offense is committed.
Schiraldi founded Youth Correctional Leaders for Justice and served as its co-chair before leading DJS. Schiraldi and Schindler both continue to serve on the collective’s steering committee.
Affiliates of Schiraldi’s newly implemented DJS youth engagement program, known as the “Thrive Academy,” included many supporters directly tied to the initiative. The initiative uses community-based organizations as peer coaches for youth involved with DJS in a six-month program.
Letter signer David Muhammad, the executive director of the nonprofit National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), developed the Thrive Academy and provides training to community service providers, according to his non-profit. Shantay Jackson, another letter signer supporting Schiraldi, also works for NICJR.
Jackson served as the Baltimore Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) director before an abrupt May 2023 announcement that she was leaving city government.
Neither David Muhammad nor the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform financially benefit from DJS,” a NICJR spokesperson said in an email to FOX45 News after they signed the letter. “The work that NICJR did to help develop the Thrive Academy and the training of community service providers was funded by private philanthropy.”
A previous email from NICJR to FOX45 News in April said that Muhammad served as the technical assistance and training partner to the Maryland Thrive Academy as well as Baltimore’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy.
When asked about who funds NICJR’s support for DJS, the organization’s spokesperson did not provide a response. A spokesperson for Gov. Moore’s office told FOX45 News in February $2.6 million in private, state and federal funding has been given to advance the Thrive Academy with the hope of continued increases in funding.
We Are Us, another organization that signed the letter supporting Schiraldi, received $500,000 in federal funding to support Thrive Academy’s summer programming inside DJS.
Laurie Styron, the CEO and executive director of Charity Watch, told FOX45 News that there has been an increase in social welfare non-profits participating in electioneering and politically driven activities.
“I think when you’re talking about non-profits getting involved in the political landscape, there is a big issue of ‘pay-to-play’ like there is elsewhere in the political landscape,” Styron said. “[T]o the extent there are interested parties and a lot of money to be made, and a lots of leverage to be gotten by influencing certain things, there are going to be people who exploit those rules and lack of oversight for their own gain.”
Charity Watch is an independent watchdog organization that has been investigating corruption in nonprofits since 1992.
When most people think of non-profits, they’re thinking of your traditional sheltering the homeless, assisting the hungry, helping assistant veterans,” Styron said. “They’re not imagining there is this giant undercurrent of dark money that is absolutely influencing elections in no uncertain terms.”
Schiraldi, Schindler and a spokesperson for DJS did not respond to questions from FOX45 News about potential conflicts of interest the support letter may present. Questions about DJS leadership’s involvement in organizing the letter campaign also went unanswered.
Meanwhile, while Love said he is committed to supporting Schiraldi, he added concern about some organizations that co-signed the letter with him.
“I have issues with some of the organizations that are signed onto the letter,” Love said. “I think there are valid criticisms of some of the organizations that have signed onto the letter who are part of what I have criticized is part of the industrial non-profit complex that benefits off of black suffering.”
Love said he will remain focused and continue to be a leading voice in his life-long mission as a former high school teacher and debate coach, dedicated to the human and youth development of working-class urban youth.
Follow Gary Collins on X. Do you have news tips on this story or others? Send news tips to [email protected].
