Violent Robberies Make It Hard to Ignore D.C.'s Vicious Side

According to D.C. police, 420 juveniles taken into custody on armed-robbery charges in the city this year had been arrested before. Including the robbery case, 144 of them have been arrested twice; 102, three times; 74, four times; 44, five times; 29, six times; 10, seven times; five, eight times; five, nine times; three, 10 times; one, 11 times; one, 12 times; and two, 14 times.

"You do a robbery and get caught for the fifth time, and they send you to Oak Hill," Ramsey said, referring to the city's juvenile detention facility in Laurel, "and you stay for three months.

"Then you get released to a group home, and nobody tells us that you've been released because juvenile court proceedings are secret. We know nothing about your release until you get arrested for the sixth time. To most of them, it's just a joke."

Last fall, Ramsey began deploying more police officers to neighborhoods experiencing a surge in armed robberies. He also increased the reward for information leading to the arrests of armed robbers from $5,000 to $10,000.

But it's unlikely that money and police alone will solve the problem. The city is being terrorized -- and, as residents of many low-income neighborhoods will tell you, it's been that way for years. When discussing terrorism abroad, we talk about giving would-be terrorists a better choice -- of giving them hope of a better life and providing them with the tools to help them realize the fruits of freedom and democracy.

Now that the homegrown terrorists have our attention, maybe it would be a good time to show how that's done -- in the nation's capital.

E-mail:milloyc@washpost.com