New York’s juvenile justice system is broken and failing thanks to Raise the Age – a 2018 law that sends most teen criminals to Family Court and not punishing 16- and 17-year-olds who possess loaded firearms.
“We have already murdered fifteen young people with a firearm this year. I’m talking about being killed by a gunshot. In previous years it wasn’t even close,” Michael Lipetri, head of the NYPD’s Crime Control Strategies, complained to The Post.
But it’s not just about gun crimes: the police see young people – some as young as twelve years old – commit five, six, seven robberies.
- A 14-year-old arrested 20 times in less than two years for theft, grand larceny and possession of stolen property remains on the streets
- A 12-year-old who has been arrested six times, including for weapons possession, also roams the streets
- Another juvenile offender, 17, has nine arrests to his name, including three gun robberies
- A migrant teen terror’s criminal record includes nearly a dozen arrests this year for a slew of robberies and assaults
The average age at which young criminals pick up an illegal gun has fallen from 16 or 17 to just 12 or 13 – and the number of adolescent inmates charged with murder has risen from seven in April 2018 to more than 230 in May 2023.
Since Raise the Age went into effect, gun violence among young people has skyrocketed; tough older teens now populate New York City’s ill-prepared juvenile facilities.
Last month, a city department of investigation report discovered that the city’s two juvenile prisons had become overrun insane asylums where the worst teenage inmates reign; Reforms implemented in response to the DOI investigation have reduced, but not ended, the worst abuses.
Family Court’s “milk and cookies” approach doesn’t work and it certainly doesn’t save lives affected by gun violence.
And as youth shooters have killed 15 other teens, the city’s lawmakers have yet to respond to a crisis that’s particularly affecting Black and Hispanic communities.
And the state lawmakers primarily responsible for the massacre — House Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins — were re-elected this month.
Heastie, Stewart-Cousins and their colleagues refuse to accept that teenage criminals who commit serious crimes and carry weapons should face serious consequences.
Nor will reckless Governor Hochul challenge the Legislature to join her in righting the out-of-control mess of juvenile justice.
The so-called adults abandon the children.
