Crisis in New York: juvenile offenders, youth gangs and a broken Justice system
Juveniles accounted for 12% of gun crime arrests in 2023, up from 7% in 2018, when the "Raise the Age" law went into effect preventing juveniles from being tried as adults.
The New York City Police Department precinct in Times Square.
New York is facing an alarming wave of juvenile crime, while its justice system is being damaged more and more every day by its progressive rulers. Laws that seek to reduce sentences, insufficient resources and the defunding of law enforcement agencies are giving rise to a new generation of criminals.
The New York Post revealed stories of repeat juvenile offenders with long arrest lists, new criminal gangs and those responsible for overcrowded detention centers. All of this highlights the failures of a system unable to stop the violence or offer solutions.
An overwhelmed system
A 14-year-old, with a record of nearly two dozen arrests in less than two years for robberies and possession of stolen goods, remains free despite his repeated arrests. In a similar case, a 12-year-old boy that has been arrested six times, including weapons charges, also remains free because of state laws that limit the authorities' ability to keep juveniles in custody.
Michael Lipetri, Chief of Crime Control Strategies for the NYPD, noted a serious increase in the number of juveniles involved in violent crime:
We're seeing juveniles commit five, six, seven robberies. If they get arrested with a gun we know a quarter of that population will be involved in a shooting in some way. We already have 15 juveniles killed this year by a gun. It wasn't even cloe in prior years.
Statistics back up his statements: juveniles accounted for 12% of gun crime arrests in 2023, up from 7% in 2018, when the Raise the Age law went into effect.
Raise the Age law: a solution or a problem?
The Raise the Age legislation, which raises the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18, was designed to deal with juveniles in family courts rather than adult courts. However, it has been proven with data that this policy has generated an increase in juvenile crime by reducing the legal consequences for juvenile offenders.
This is proven by the numbers, which shows that the city's only two juvenile detention facilities, Horizon Juvenile Center in the Bronx and Crossroads Juvenile Center in Brooklyn, are now dangerously overcrowded. According to a recent report, the resident population at these centers increased from 52 in 2018 to 237 in 2023. The number of juvenile murder charges rose from seven to more than 230 in the same period.
Youth gangs
The problem is not just limited to individual offenders. The Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua, which has settled in New York, has formed a youth group known as the "Diablos de la 42", made up of children as young as 11 years old. One member of this group, a 15-year-old, was arrested nearly a dozen times this year, including armed robberies, but was only sent to a juvenile facility after his 11th arrest. Lipetri stated:
"Why? Because there's no consequences right now. We already have 15 juveniles murdered this year by a gun. I'm talking about being murdered by a gunshot. It wasn't even close in previous years."
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