A Rosy View of Youth Crime

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By Colbert I. King

Saturday, December 13, 2008

"The overall serious crime arrest rate for juveniles declined 24% between January 2004 and August of 2008."

-- The report "Public Safety Outcomes Among DYRS Youth," prepared by the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, October 2008

The assertion of a downward trend in D.C. juvenile crime is called "good news" by the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.

But is that assertion true?

Not according to a Metropolitan Police Department analysis of the DYRS report, which I obtained from a non-police source.

"Although it would certainly be in the best interest of the MPD's image to publicize a 24% decrease in juvenile crime as DYRS asserts," notes the police analysis -- titled "A Careful Look at the Statistical Data Regarding Juvenile Crime in D.C." -- "it would be irresponsible and misleading to promulgate such information."

The police analysis said the DYRS report was "well intentioned" but based on an "unsound and incomplete analysis of limited numbers and isolated time frames."

In the report, the police department was being kind to a sister agency.

It has long been a complaint in law enforcement circles that DYRS plays fast and loose with statistics to make Director Vincent Schiraldi's stewardship look good.

Juvenile arrest figures are a case in point.

DYRS claims a 24 percent decrease in juvenile arrests for selected "serious" crimes. Yet the agency compared only the number of arrests from January through August of 2004 to those that occurred during the same period in 2008, the police analysis observed.

DYRS conveniently overlooked the data for the years between.