How is DC reacting to youth crime?
Juvenile arrests, prosecutions and detentions are all up in 2023
Youth crime is one of the top concerns for many Washingtonians but we have surprisingly little data about it. This disparity between interest and available information has probably fueled public anxiety; especially when youth crimes capture so much media attention. This lack of data has also left both policymakers and residents in the dark about how DC’s juvenile justice system is reacting to the problem. This post outlines what data we do have and how there have been increasing numbers of juvenile arrests, prosecutions and detention so far in 2023.
One of the central problems with analyzing “youth crime” is that DC’s public-facing crime database DC Crime Cards doesn’t contain info about the age (suspected or confirmed) of any suspects or victims. This means that as crime trends rise and fall we can’t attribute them to juveniles or adults. On one hand, this is understandable because many victims can’t differentiate between a 17 or 18 year old and some crimes are committed by a group that includes both juveniles and adults. On the other hand, this means that we can’t really track if youth crime is rising or falling. Given the overall increase in DC’s crime rate in 2023 and statements from law enforcement officers it is very likely that youth crime has increased this year. But we don’t really know how much.
Our first hard data on some youth crimes comes from the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) juvenile arrest data. This data is released in 6 month increments and there has been a significant increase in arrests in recent months:
Juvenile arrests in the first half of 2023 were 17% higher than the same months in 2022
Arrests rose sharply in May and June, with June 2023 having 63% more arrests than June 2022
Longer-term, juvenile arrests have followed a similar pattern as adult arrests. Arrests overall (and per MPD officer) fell significantly during COVID and remained at a new lower equilibrium until this recent increase. Note that we don’t have any 2023 adult arrest data to see if those arrests are increasing as well.
In terms of the specific charges against juvenile suspects, there have been large increases in absconder, robbery, simple assault and unauthorized use of a vehicle:
Note that YTD crime stats show robbery is up 66% and motor vehicle theft (often the reason people are eventually caught for “unauthorized use of a vehicle”) is up 108%. So the juvenile arrest trends are up but also somewhat behind the overall increase in those crimes. This may reflect that adults are driving more of the overall trend, that MPD is closing fewer of these juvenile cases or some other factors are driving the differences.
We don’t know a lot about the youth that MPD arrests other than their “Home Police Service Area” (PSA) which in the table below is mapped to their Police District:
There’s been a large increase in the number of arrested youth with an “Unknown” home PSA or district.
The largest absolute increase in arrests has been in defendants from police district 4
“Out of State” youth were only 10% of arrestees, much lower than the 39% of adult arrestees that were out of state in 2022.
While 40% of juvenile arrestees are from police districts 6 and 7 east of the Anacostia River, these 397 arrests (some of which may be repeat arrests) are a small fraction of the young people living in those neighborhoods.
After arrest, most juvenile cases are handled by DC’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG). However, the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) can and does prosecute a small number of juvenile defendants for what are known as “Title 16 Offenses”:
While Title 16 offenses are some of the most awful and high-profile cases; the vast majority of juvenile cases are prosecuted by the OAG. Unfortunately we don’t have regular data on youth prosecutions but we do have this snippet from this story in the Post:
This data point does tell us that juvenile prosecutions for a “crime of violence” (a specific category in DC law) are up 33% since last year. The arrest data only goes through June but I attempted to categorize each arrest’s “Top Charge” by if they were a “crime of violence” and got a total of 278 juvenile arrests for crimes of violence. That equates to 46.3 per month so we can (very roughly) estimate that MPD has made ~324 juvenile “crime of violence” arrests from January-July. Based on that estimate, it would imply that the OAG is pressing charges on ~78% of MPD’s crime of violence arrests. This % could be higher if some of those arrests have been instead prosecuted by the USAO under Title 16. And the % could be higher or lower because this is a rough estimate. Washingtonians would be better off if the OAG would release comprehensive (and preferably timely) prosecution data. All those caveats aside, a ~78% prosecution rate for juveniles accused of violent crimes is probably higher than some people imagined. I see a lot of social media commentary that juvenile crime isn’t prosecuted pretty much at all in DC. There’s plenty of reason to demand more data and transparency on OAG prosecution decisions and outcomes; but at first glance this seems more in line with “normal” prosecutorial practice than the USAO:
With both arrests and prosecutions increasing it’s no surprise that more juveniles are being detained:
Detained juvenile population increased from 48 in January to 91 in May
The detainee census at the Youth Services Center (YSC) is 82 as of today according to DYRS’ daily snapshot
The big increase in the juvenile detainee population happened months before the “emergency crime bill” went into effect. While this bill did expand the criteria for pretrial detention, the effect of increased arrests and prosecutions (i.e. enforcement) had a much larger real world effect.
Unfortunately we don’t really have any timely data on youth prosecution outcomes; either sentencing, dismissal, diversion etc. But these data point do show that DC’s criminal justice system has increased enforcement against juveniles in 2023. That basic, directional fact doesn’t imply that things are great (they aren’t) but it does cut against the conventional wisdom in some circles.
It’s also important to note that this increase in arrests, prosecution and detention happened before any changes in DC law. A huge portion of the Mayor’s messaging for her flawed “Safer Stronger” bill (including a counterproductive proposal to allow pretrial detention of kids that were deemed to be NOT a threat to the public OR a flight risk) was that it was impossible to “get tough” on youth crime because of “legal gaps.”
This data shows that just wasn’t true. When MPD made more arrests the OAG prosecuted more cases and more juveniles accused of serious crimes were detained by the Courts. That was the stated objective of the Mayor’s controversial juvenile pretrial detention policy that CM Pinto wisely removed from the emergency bill. This is one of the many cases where the executive branch swears up and down that they cannot do their jobs because of some legislative barrier and when pressed (or a new leader like Chief Smith comes in) it turns out to just be a way to politically deflect the blame away from the Mayor.
Laws matter but DC pays far too much attention to legislative fights between the Mayor and Council at the expense of desperately needed attention on how key agencies are actually enforcing the laws. Almost unreported changes in juvenile enforcement in 2023 have driven much larger impacts than the emergency crime bill that consumed exponentially more media attention. Youth crime and the broader problems that young Washingtonians face are serious issues. There needs to be more attention on how DC agencies and community groups are preventing and reacting to youth crime.