Would eliminating the need to monitor people over the age of 18 improve the performance of the city’s chronically troubled Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services? Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) thinks so. WAMU reports that Graham — who chairs the Council’s Committee on Human Services — is pondering a major reform to the District’s juvenile justice system: reducing the maximum age of DYRS wards from 21 to 18.

“Nearly 50 percent of the DYRS wards are 18 to 21, even though the programs are set up for children,” Graham says. “When you are 18 you are not a child, you are an adult.” Graham says the move would free up resources and allow D.C. to concentrate on younger children.

“You would see a lot more results because we would have job development programs, we would have literacy, we would be dealing with this marijuana addiction, having mental health because a lot of these kids are abused,” Graham says. “It would be different.”

The District is one of the last remaining jurisdictions which classifies people over 18 as juvenile offenders.

Obviously, reducing the agency’s case load by half would certainly have its benefits, considering that many of the problems DYRS has with the youth offenders under its purview seem to stem from an inability to actually keep track of them on a reliable basis. Of course, it’s not just a numbers game — the issues at DYRS are far deeper than just it’s high number of wards.

Such proposed reform would also require the involvement of Mayor Vince Gray; in 2008, then-mayor Adrian Fenty attempted to institute an action plan to improve the work at DYRS, though changing the maximum age was not part of that strategy.