‘Kids are kids’ is no way to handle violent criminals
Washington Examiner
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District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb recently told local media about astonishing levels of juvenile crime afflicting residents of the nation’s capital, especially outside of its more expensive white liberal enclaves.
Asked whether teenagers should be treated as adults when they commit violent crimes, he replied, “I don’t think kids should be treated as adults. Kids are kids, and when you’re talking about teenagers in particular, their brains are developing, their minds are developing, and they’re biologically prone to make mistakes. That’s what we’ve all done as we’ve grown up.”
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In a normal context, that would make some sense. Everyone makes youthful mistakes. But unfortunately, the crimes Schwalb and his interviewer were referring to are not “mistakes.” A mistake is perhaps stealing money from the cash register where you work. A mistake is pocketing a box of cigars in a convenience store. A mistake is trying marijuana while underage. The justice system usually goes easier on youthful offenders who commit such crimes, and it is right that it does so.
But repeated and often depraved violent crime against others is another matter. It is not a mistake. Serial armed robberies — for example, the string of 10 gunpoint robberies allegedly committed by three teenage boys in a five-hour period in Washington on April 23 or the 13 robberies allegedly committed by three teenage girls and a 17-year-old boy over five days — are not mistakes. Juvenile carjacking is not a mistake. These crimes are conscious choices to prey upon others. Such crimes are also red flags identifying people who have been so badly corrupted when young that they must be incarcerated for lengthy periods of time lest they hurt anyone else.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), known for stating blunt truths that liberals find difficult to handle, put it well when he reacted to this story Wednesday, tweeting, “16 & 17 year olds who commit carjackings are not kids. They’re violent criminals who need to be locked up for years. Calling these criminals ‘kids’ is an insult to the victims.”
Justice is for the society in which it operates, not just for the criminals in its midst. Law-abiding citizens have a right to expect that predators, even those still in their midteens, will be rendered harmless for an effective period.
Carjacking and armed robbery are not petty offenses on the level of shoplifting or joyriding. They are violent crimes that come with a high probability of injury or death to the victim.
Schwalb’s “kids are kids” mentality explains how it comes to be that Washington is suffering a dramatic spike in carjackings, especially juvenile carjackings. Before June 2020, the month the George Floyd riots began, there were seldom 20 carjackings in Washington in any given month, and never more than 25. But in the time since, they have routinely exceeded 50 per month — there have been 59 this month, and there’s still time to exceed last month’s 62 or even the November 2020 record of 66.
As long as there are no consequences, these crimes will continue and get worse. Innocent people have been killed because of permissive attitudes. Two girls, the younger one age 13, murdered a Pakistani immigrant Uber Eats driver Mohammad Anwar by tasing him while he was driving, causing him to crash. Thirteen-year-olds do not normally commit such crimes unless the adults in authority signal there will be no consequences.
As one Washington resident interviewed by Fox 5 put it, “A majority of them know, ‘This is something that I can get away with,’ because they know the legal system.”
That hits the nail on the head. Carjackers and armed robbers are not poor people venting anger about social injustice or trying to feed their families. Nor are they “kids” playing pranks. There are grounds for cutting slack in some cases, but that cannot become a broad rule that includes deadly, violent offenses. Society should not invite violent youthful murders and carjackings but should punish them. Hardened criminals, even those of 16 and 17, should be treated as such for the good of society.
It is only a small percentage of the population that commits nearly all violent crime. That group needs to be identified quickly and locked up upon conviction on as many charges as prosecutors can prove in court. Anyone who robs people at gunpoint or threatens motorists with death qualifies as a hardened criminal worthy of incarceration.
Schwalb needs to get his thinking straight if he cares about the people of Washington, whom he is employed to protect. He needs especially to consider those not in the wealthiest neighborhoods. It is soft-on-crime thinking that has put the district’s best days behind it and plunged it into a new era of danger, criminality, and stagnant population.