Last Friday, D.C.’s beleaguered youth rehab agency took a moment to celebrate. Eleven youngsters who had been in trouble — for anything from stealing a car to shooting up a street corner — were graduating from Maya Angelou Academy, the branch of the charter high school that teaches troubled kids at the city’s reform school, New Beginnings — a truly Orwellian moniker.
New Beginnings has made the news for its porous security system that allows young criminals to abscond. And the Department of Youth and Rehabilitative Services has gotten attention because its wards have been trigger men in many of the high-profile crimes committed of late.
It’s easy to throw brickbats at the city’s juvenile justice system; it’s grueling work to try to teach kids who have come up rough and broken bad. DYRS and the Maya Angelou Academy deserve major kudos for getting nearly a dozen kids through high school. Ten have either applied to college or been accepted. Approximately 600 of the 950 kids with the agency are in high school.
Back to the bad news. Bill Myers, my colleague on the crime beat, reported this week that Durand Lucas, 17, was the fourth juvenile to be killed this year while under DYRS supervision. There could be more. Privacy laws shield the youth agency’s files. Myers has also reported that nine kids who have been charged with murder this year were under DYRS supervision.
So with all due kudos for Friday’s graduates, I must ask: What the heck are we going to do to keep ourselves safe from the bad actors that DYRS cannot seem to keep off the streets? My chat with D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles offered a glimmer of hope.
“I think the police have done an amazing job holding down crime in the city,” Nickles said, “but violent crime by juveniles has increased.”
Nickles has been digging into records of crimes committed by kids for the past few years.
“The victims and the perpetrators know one another,” he says, “and they all have long arrest records — as in seven to 10 arrests each. Everyone knows who these kids are, and everyone is scared to death of them.”
The attorney general has realized what every cop and prosecutor and resident of D.C.’s tough streets knows: Most of the crimes are committed by a few bad apples, and most of the bad actors are kids. Now what?
Nickles is about to propose major reforms. One would force DYRS to tighten its security and keep better tabs of its wards. The second would open juvenile records for public review.
The question then becomes whether the city council has the good sense and guts to pass laws that would protect us from violent kids. Any reforms will come before Tommy Wells, whose committee oversees DYRS. Wells has praised the agency’s sweet side, which was on display for the graduation, but it’s time to give cops and prosecutors tools to keep us safe from those who would rather shoot guns than read books.
Friday night’s graduates would agree.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at mailto:[email protected] “>[email protected]
