A new leader in fighting juvenile crime emerges
(Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash)
[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]
By Joshua Crawford
Real Clear Wire
In many circles across the country, Boston is heralded as the model of violent crime reduction. Home to the “Boston Miracle” in the 1990s, many of the nation’s best practices in policing originated in this city and then spread across the country over the last two decades.
But that doesn’t mean Boston is without its challenges. Juvenile gun arrests increased 83% in 2022. The number of “incidents involving weapons resulting in discipline” increased 44% in Boston Public Schools from September 2022 through February 2023 compared to the same time the years before. And by October of last year, more juveniles had been shot than in all of 2021. A recent number of high profileattacks by juveniles and murders of juveniles are forcing policymakers and advocates alike to search for solutions.
On Father’s Day, Reverend Eugene Rivers, III issued a special call to action. His “appeal and challenge” was for fathers to “engage the question of violence in our communities.” Fathers are important factors in preventing juvenile delinquency and violence. A state-by-state analysis by the Heritage Foundation found that a 10% increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes leads to a 17% increase in juvenile crime.
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Getting fathers engaged would go a long way towards solving many of our societal problems, but when it comes to juvenile crime, there are shorter-term public policy solutions as well.
First, we have to make clear a few truths. Juvenile offending, like adult criminality, concentrates among a very small number of offenders. These juveniles are typically either associated with or being recruited into street gangs and often pressured by adults to commit serious violent offenses. In fact, gang-affiliated youth commit serious crimes atdramatically higher rates than non-gang affiliated at-risk youth.
In this area, other states and cities are leading the way in combating juvenile violent crime. Louisville, Kentucky, is a prime example. In recent years, this city has experienced substantial increases in juvenile violence, with arrest rates for juvenile homicide suspects 50% higher than the national average and a majority of carjacking arrestees being under 18 in 2020 and 2021. This prompted State Representative Kevin Bratcher to begin working on what would becomeHouse Bill 3, a comprehensive violent juvenile offender accountability and treatment bill.
Most importantly, the bill required that any juvenile charged with a serious violent offense — such as murder, rape, robbery, burglary in the first degree, and so on — be immediately detained for a period not to exceed 48 hours. This mandatory detention serves two purposes. It not only protects the public and the juvenile by disrupting the cycle of violence but it also ensures meaningful time to evaluate the youth for mental health, drug abuse, and risk to the community before a judge ultimately determines long-term release conditions or pretrial detention.
The new law also funded the creation of a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program inside a new juvenile detention center in Louisville. Boston is already home to one of the most effective uses in the nation of CBT for at-risk youth in Roca, Inc. and a version of CBT is used by the Department of Youth Services. Ensuring this programming is appropriately tailored for youth gang offenders can be critical in not only reducing recidivism, but getting these juveniles on a positive life course — in many cases, for the first time.
Kentucky also created early intervention points for truant youth who showed no improvement in their diversion programs. It does so by allowing an interdisciplinary team to alter the treatment methods earlier. If parents are unwilling or refuse to comply with a child’s diversion plan, a judge has the authority to hold the parents accountable. Chronic, unexcused absences from schools are strong predictors of future juvenile delinquency. So, getting it right with those kids today can help a child escape being preyed on by adult gang members and prevent serious violence in the future.
Finally, Kentucky several years earlier made it a class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to recruit a juvenile under 15 into a gang. Massachusetts has a law that criminalizes coercion of a child under 18 into a criminal conspiracy, but it requires an assault and battery on the child and is out of step with the way states have addressed the problem of gang recruitment in recent years.
Boston has led before on reducing juvenile crime and can do so again, even if it means following quickly behind Kentucky.
Joshua Crawford is the Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at the Georgia Center for Opportunity. He was born and raised in Massachusetts.
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