The summer heat isn’t the only thing intensifying. Too many cities around the country are experiencing a rash of crimes committed by juvenile offenders.

The kids creating chaos understand the message that many of their local elected leaders have sent them: There won’t be consequences for their actions. It’s a free-for-all.

Unfortunately, that’s because leaders in many cities have pledged not to hold these juvenile offenders appropriately accountable, pledging never to prosecute them as adults even when they commit very violent crimes. This feel-good-but-ineffective stance on dealing with juvenile crime has proven unsuccessful wherever it’s been tried.

For instance, Washington, D.C.’s attorney general has said that “kids are kids” and has pledged never to prosecute juveniles as adults. In practice, this means that even teenagers only weeks away from turning 18, will receive slaps on the wrist for committing violent crimes like rape, robbery, carjacking, or even premeditated murder.

Maybe that’s why 62% of all arrests for carjackings last year in D.C. involved juveniles and why 63% so far this year have too.

But it’s actually worse than that. This inappropriately soft-on-crime approach has created perverse incentives for gangs to recruit juveniles to commit their most violent acts. As one Florida sheriff recently noted, “Give a gun to a juvenile, drugs to a juvenile, a carjacking, a home invasion — the penalties are much, much less. The gangs, as the adults, benefit financially and the juveniles, the people who commit the violent crimes, are sentenced as juveniles. So, it’s a win-win for the gangs.”

Things are so bad in Phoenix, Arizona, that the police department there rolled out its 2024 crime reduction plan with an entire section specifically focused on juvenile crime. As one news report indicates, “(d)ata shows a 76% increase in juvenile violent crime (this year), including homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, weapons violations, motor vehicle theft and stolen property.”

Statistics are equally as grim in other cities such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Around this time last year, juvenile crime was continuing on an upward trend there. But the statistics don’t tell the whole story. Each rape, robbery, or murder represents a victim — a real person with a real family all of whom have suffered a real loss.

Dottie Hacket, a Milwaukee mother, knows this fact all too well. Her son Marquis, the father of three children, was killed by a 14-year-old fleeing police in a stolen car. A gun was found in the car after he and the other four juveniles who were with him at the time were arrested. As local news reports have noted, the state charged this juvenile offender “with nearly identical crimes in children’s court just months before he killed” Dottie’s son. “Those counts included armed robbery and fleeing police in a stolen car.” Just two weeks before he killed Dottie’s son while fleeing police, he failed to appear for a court hearing.

His punishment for this dangerous conduct? Maybe five years in juvenile custody — though he could be released after only a year if he has been sufficiently “rehabilitated.”

Dottie said that to “think my son’s life is worth a year or two hurts the hell out of me. It’s shameful. It really is.” She exclaimed that “Something’s got to give... Somebody’s got to wake up and somebody’s got to do something about it.”

That’s absolutely true.

And local leaders can start by making clear to juvenile offenders — and those who would seek to manipulate them (like gang members) — that if you commit an adult crime, you will do adult time.

The formula for success isn’t hidden — and it’s not hard. But it does require a commitment from local leaders to fund and empower police and prosecutors to do their jobs and protect their communities — and the juvenile offenders themselves — by meeting out tough love when necessary.

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Zack Smith is a Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program in the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center.

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