Metropolitan Police officers responded to 1,714 missing persons calls from D.C.-run criminal juvenile homes that dot city neighborhoods, according to The Examiner’s review of police records.
The calls were made from 11 homes over a two-year period, from July 2004 to this July. Managers of the homes must call police every time a juvenile walks out or is late.
Police Chief Charles Ramsey said the findings demonstrate that the teenagers — all of whom have been arrested for felonies — have already shown a penchant for not following rules and are not being held accountable by the justice system.
“If there are going to be rules, there has to be punishment,” Ramsey said. “People need boundaries, and they have to be enforced or nothing will change.”
The Examiner’s findings come as the city is in the midst of a crime emergency and Washington grapples with ways to protect its youth and stem a spike in violent juvenile crime. Two months ago, Mayor Anthony Williams ordered a 10 p.m. curfew for teens 16 and younger. The D.C. Council temporarily opened juvenile criminal records to police so they could track teenagers who’ve been released from the system. Despite the measures, three teenagers, ages 14, 15 and 16, were slain within 24 hours this week, raising the total number of murder victims younger than 17 this year to 15.
Vincent Schiraldi, named head of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services a year and a half ago, says the missing persons totals are misleading because many of the missing persons calls are to notify the police that the offender has returned, he said.
“Ask any parent how many times their teenagers come home late,” Schiraldi said. The greater issue, he said, is finding the juveniles who run away from the homes. “Those are the ones who get in trouble and get hurt.”
Robert Halligan, president of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, has been tracking juvenile crime in his neighborhood for years. In six months, he said, police responded 134 times to missing persons calls at the home for convicted juveniles at 1728 P St. NW.
“We have a profoundly dysfunctional government, and until people get their arms around that fact, nothing will change,” he said. “It drives me insane.”
Three years ago, 26 percent of convicted teenagers were missing from group homes, including Marcel Merritt, 16, who police said was a suspect in four homicides before he was fatally gunned down in October 2005.
In August, Youth Rehabilitation reduced the number of convicted juvenile felons on the loose to 6 percent, Schiraldi said.
Rank-and-file police say it’s a huge public safety problem and a giant drain on resources.
“We’re teaching these kids that the system doesn’t care what you do, that the system’s a joke,” one D.C. police officer said.
About 110 juveniles live in the criminal group homes at any one time. The juveniles are put there because they’ve been convicted of a felony or they are awaiting trial for one. Each facility houses between four and 10 youths. It’s impossible to tell from the outside that the house is a group home. The youths attend school and can participate in after-school activities.
When a juvenile is late, police are notified and dispatched to the home. Police have to take the information down and figure out why the teen was late and who he or she might be staying with. Police then call local hospitals, the D.C. morgue and the family, who usually become angry.
” ‘He’s in your custody. Why are you calling us?’ ” the parents ask, one officer said.
If the juvenile is gone for more than one hour, the custody order or warrant is issued, and the offender has to appear before a family court judge.
