More Young Blacks in U.S. Involved in Homicides

Homicide rates across the country have fallen so much over the past decade that a disturbing trend is often unnoticed: a precipitous rise in homicides involving young black men, both as perpetrators and victims.

The percentage of black males ages 14 to 17 who killed someone rose by more than a third between 2000 and 2007, according to a report released yesterday by two researchers at Northeastern University in Boston.

The researchers did not break out statistics for the District, but juvenile arrests in homicides have risen from 10 last year to 16 this year.

The change is striking in comparison with the number of homicides, which has stayed largely flat in the District, increasing less than 3 percent, from 180 last year to 185 so far this year.

Northeastern criminologist James Alan Fox, the study's co-author, said that lawmakers claimed victory in the fight against crime too soon and enacted budget cuts, trimming federal dollars for local police and programs for disadvantaged youths in favor of domestic anti-terrorism measures, particularly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"We got a little too complacent," Fox said in a phone interview. "This is a disturbing trend. Many more people are murdered in street violence every year than were killed in 9/11."

Fox and co-author Marc L. Swatt, an assistant criminal justice professor at Northeastern, examined homicide data from 2002 to 2007 submitted by law enforcement agencies across the country for the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. Last year, according to the study, homicides were committed by 1,142 black juveniles ages 14 to 17. That was a 34 percent increase from 851 in 2000. In contrast, white male juveniles committed 547 homicides last year, a 1.5 percent increase from 539 in 2000.

There was also a significant increase in the number of black youths in the same age group who were shot to death: 426 last year, up from 303 in 2000. Fox said that 964 youths in the same demographic committed fatal shootings in 2007, up from 698 in 2000.

The study notes homicide levels are much lower than the high levels during the turf wars over crack dealing in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It blames the current trend partly on the "increasing numbers of wayward and poorly-supervised youngsters with guns in their hands and gangs in their plans."

Fox said the Obama administration should restore funding for police, build up inferior schools and refocus efforts to keep guns away from children. "We've had a bailout for Wall Street," Fox said. "Maybe we need a bailout for at-risk youth."

It's an argument often leveled locally by youth advocates, who contend that lawmakers reflexively, and wrongly, push for tougher enforcement and criticize hip-hop culture.

"We don't need any more laws or any more people locked up," said Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

"I don't think the system has gotten more lenient. We have lost a community-based approach to prevention. Generally, what we need is more adults who might listen and figure out upfront the kids who need help."