Wes Moore on Young Criminals: I’m a Governor Who Had Handcuffs on My Wrists by the Time I Was 11-Years-Old

EXCERPT:

MOORE: “But I also know, from a very personal experience, that I‘m a governor who had handcuffs on my wrists by the time I was 11 years old, that I‘m a governor who watched my immigrant single mother have to raise us because my father died in front of me when I was three, that I was a person who joined the military when I was 17 years old after getting sent away to military school when I was just becoming a teenager. So I understand, and we are going to put a real focus on addressing what is happening with our young men and boys and unearthing their talents. It‘s the reason we made Maryland the first state in the country that now has a service year option for all of our high school graduates. It‘s the reason that we have a program called Thrive, an award-winning program that‘s targeting the young people in our state who either have the highest chance of either being the victim or the perpetrator of gun violence, and I know that over 95% of them are young boys. And so in our state, we are focusing on helping our young men and boys. It is a necessary thing to do. And if you do that, it‘s not to the exclusion of what‘s happening to our young girls, but it‘s making sure that if you want to have strong families and strong communities, you have to be able to uplift the young men and boys who live in them as well."