Gun-wielding teenagers committing hard-core violence are driving the crime wave that has caused D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey this month to declare a 30-day emergency.
Through the first six months of 2006, juvenile robbery arrests in the District are up 95 percent and four out of every 10 individuals arrested for robbery have been juveniles. One famous example is the brutal throat-slashing of a London man in Georgetown, in which police arrested a 15-year-old.
If these trends continue, arrests of people 17 years old and younger will top 3,000 this year, a level not seen in the District since the 1990s.
The causes are many, experts said. A stretched District budget, cuts in federal spending, failed schools, new anti-terrorism police responsibilities and an overwhelmed juvenile system all contribute.
American University sociology professor William Chambliss predicted a crime increase when the federal government started gutting social programs for jobs, health care, education, child care and prison rehabilitation.
“The greater the disparity between rich and poor, the greater the crime rate,” Chambliss said.
D.C. has one of the widest disparities between rich and poor of any large city in the country.
Washington teenagers, many of whom cannot read at the high-school level, see few opportunities to succeed and turn to crime as a solution, Chambliss said.
Susie Cambria, of DC Action for Children, said there are many smart people within the city committed to stopping juvenile crime, but she doesn’t know if anyone knows the exact causes.
“It’s a whole lot of things,” Cambria said. “We just don’t know what the whole lot of things are.”
Ed Reiskin, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, said, “I can’t say I have any good answer for it. I could provide all kind of speculation, but could provide equally as much related to why it shouldn’t logically be happening.”
Ramsey wants tougher penalties and to see more juveniles tried as adults. Many of those arrested on armed-robbery charges had been arrested before, some as many as 14 times. When a D.C. police officer was shot in the leg during a struggle with a 15-year-old in April, the judge indicated last month that youth would get probation because of overcrowding in juvenile institutions.
Ramsey has also asked for legislation to give police access to criminal records of repeat and dangerous juvenile offenders. Those records remain off limits under privacy laws.
Inside the numbers of D.C.’s juvenile violence
» One out of every six juveniles arrested in D.C. today is charged with a violent offense, compared with about one out of every 20 adults arrested.
» There have been eight juvenile homicides as of July 7 this year, as compared to 12 in 2005, 24 in 2004, and 13 in 2003, and 17 in 2002. All eight victims were male; seven died from gunshot wounds. The eighth, a 5-month-old baby, was a victim of child abuse, killed by blunt force impact trauma.
» The District produced its first Children’s Budget detailing proposed fiscal year 2007 spending on youth across all agencies. The Children’s Budget report showed that the city is spending nearly $2.2 billion on its youngest residents.
