New York reports 37% spike in crimes among American youth

In the past seven years, crimes involving children have increased by more than a third.

Such a rise in crime involving children occurred at a time when laws governing such crimes were loosened in the New York state. In the 2024 US presidential election, crime has emerged as a major issue, with Republicans considering it as the third most important issue after economy and immigration.

The number of children involved in major crimes, such as murders, robberies, and assaults, in New York City increased during 2017-23 by 37 per cent, according to The New York Times.

Those accused or arrested in felony assaults, in which a person is seriously injured or a deadly weapon like a gun or knife is used, jumped by 28 per cent since 2017, according to The Times.

The newspaper’s analysis showed that robberies involving children increased by 52 per cent and killings involving minors rose by more than 200 per cent.

As child victims of crimes also rose by 54 per cent in the said period, Michael LiPetri, the head of New York Police crime strategies, told the paper that “most of what we see is youth-on-youth crime”.

Even though the crimes involving children have increased in the past seven years, such crimes remained a small fraction of the overall, amounting to around 3.8 per cent, as per the paper, which was around the same as 2017.

The statistics have also reignited debate around the response to such crime. Before 2017, many children accused of serious crimes were treated as adults in courts. Lawmakers, however, changed the law in 2017 which led to most 16- and 17-year-olds being tried in family courts.

As family courts’ rulings are often sealed, police and prosecutors have found it hard to provide evidence of prior offensives when prosecuting repeat offenders, according to the newspaper.