A Sad Toll Within Juvenile Justice's Realm

Data on drug use by parents of youths who died while detained by the agency were not available.

Another indication of family burdens: Nearly 30 percent of all slain youths who had been assigned to the department in 2006 were also documented as neglect or abuse cases in the District's Child and Family Services Agency. That's an increase from 25.9 percent in 2005.

-- Status of cases at time of death: In 2005, 31 percent of the "committed" homicide victims had, at some point, been listed under "abscondence," or away from confinement without permission. Last year, that number skyrocketed to 70 percent.

An equal percentage of "detained" youths in 2006 had, at some point, been documented as having absconded.

-- Juvenile court history: In both years, the common violence-related charges among the 44 included armed carjacking, armed robbery, first-degree murder, possession of an unregistered firearm and possession of ammunition.

It was also common for them to have faced multiple charges and arrests.

In fact, 76.4 percent of last year's victims had multiple charges. That was down from 85.2 percent in 2005.

One homicide victim had nine arrests in 2006.

-- Where did they live? The highest numbers of last year's murdered DYRS-assigned youths lived east of North Capitol Street in Wards 7 and 6, followed by Wards 5, 4 and 1.

In 2005, Wards 7 and 8 shared the highest number of these slain youths, followed by Wards 6, 5, 4 and 1. None of the youths lived in Ward 3 in 2005 or 2006.

-- Where did they die? Last year, Ward 7, with five victims, had the highest number of murdered youths who had been assigned to rehabilitative services. Ward 8 topped the list in 2005 with seven.

In 2006, Ward 6, with four murdered agency-assigned youths, tied Ward 8 for second place. Wards 1, 4 and 5 had one fatality each. Wards 2 and 3 had none in 2006.

What's being done?

A city-funded program has been designed to find and return to custody runaways from the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services. The department has also created a program of intensive supervision that pairs mentors from community organizations with youths recently released from secure custody.

Future columns will explore the programs' effectiveness in preventing youths from running away and reducing juvenile rearrests.

kingc@washpost.com