A few short months ago, I used this space to address juvenile crime and explore the link between juvenile delinquency and crime. We were entering the summer months – a time when juvenile delinquency and crime are especially prevalent because there are historically a larger number of youth not engaged in any constructive or productive activity.
As we enter the school year, the issue of juvenile crime remains a critical concern. The Virgin Islands, like the United States mainland, is experiencing an increase in juvenile crime. Law enforcement officials across the United States report that juveniles are participating in crimes so vicious that children are being tried as adults. Locally, our youth are being arrested for their involvement in a variety of crimes including sexually related crimes, burglary, assault, auto theft, and weapons violations. Of the 485 arrests made in the St. Croix district from January to August 2006, 120 have involved minors. These arrest statistics are almost twice the 2005 data reported for the same time period, when officers of the Youth Investigation Bureau (St. Croix) arrested 64 juveniles.
Typically, law enforcement agencies have responded to this upswing in juvenile crime by implementing and enforcing curfews, under the belief that if minors are off the streets there will be less juvenile crime. Recently, a string of events in Washington, DC led police to modify their curfew, making it illegal for anyone younger than 17 to be out on the street after 10 p.m. Local curfew laws set the same time restrictions on Virgin Islands teens.
The question is: “Do curfews work?” There is a startling lack of evidence to show that they do. Yet, after increases in juvenile crime, curfews become a quick and easy way to address our juvenile crime issues. As I have previously stated, if the Virgin Islands community is serious about addressing juvenile crime, we must take additional measures that extend beyond a mandated curfew. At the most basic level, we must make an honest and critical assessment of the factors that contribute to juvenile crime.
A 1994 report prepared by the Milton Marks “Little Hoover” Commission on California State Government and Organization and Economy titled “The Juvenile Crime Challenge: Making Prevention a Priority” said there is no “silver bullet” that will halt juvenile crime. Essentially, a single-pronged approach will not work. Like the Virgin Islands Police Department, the Milton Marks Commission advocates a multi-agency effort to address the failures that have triggered juvenile crime.
What are the triggers that our children are reacting to? According to the Milton Marks Commission, it is a failure of our communities, parents, schools and public organizations. Lessons that generations past have learned, have not resounded with this younger generation. The Marks Commission clarifies what we already suspect: “The concept that there are consequences linked to decisions is not passed down to children.”
Our community is presently witness and victim to the consequences to our failure to adopt preventive and pro-active strategies to address juvenile crime. I remain convinced that addressing juvenile crime demands a multi-agency effort and coordinated effort. This inter-agency approach should involve all agencies that have roles in the care and supervision of children, including this department and the departments of Education, Human Services and Housing, Parks and Recreation. Preventive and proactive strategies can be realized by pooling our combined resources to come up with a realistic and necessary approach to addressing juvenile crime. The realities of the juvenile crime issue are too complex to make its resolution the responsibility of any one agency.
