Juvenile crime skyrockets

Study reveals violent offenses are almost double statewide

By KIRSTEN CROW
LAREDO MORNING TIMES

Violent juvenile crimes — including manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, forcible rape and murder — have nearly doubled since 2000 in Webb County. According to a study released by the Center for Public Policy Priorities on Friday, the number of children aged 10 to 17 arrested for violent crimes is on the rise, a statistic officials attributed to the growing pervasiveness of the gang lifestyle.

The State of Texas Children 2006 compares data for each of the 254 counties Texas comprises. According to the study, Webb County ranks as the 243rd worst county in the state for arrests of juveniles for violent offenses, increasing from 78 arrests in 2000 to 152 arrests in 2004.

The leap can’t be accounted for around population growth, either, said Frances Deviney, executive director of CFPP’s Texas Kids Count and the article’s co-author. Rates for juvenile arrests in violent crimes are up from 303 per 100,000 children in 2000 to 464 per 100,000 in 2004.

Webb County’s figures exceed the Texas counties average rate of 188 arrests per every 100,000 children.

“It’s not that the population is bigger, it’s that the problem is bigger,” Deviney said about the Webb County statistics. “That being said, if the infrastructure is not in place to support that growth, that can cause social problems.”

According to Laredo Police Department’s Juvenile Enforcement Team, otherwise known as JET, juvenile arrests as a whole are down: by September 2005 there had been 1,299 arrests, while during that same period in 2006, there were 1,202.

But County Attorney Homero Ramirez, whose office is charged with prosecuting juvenile offenders, and Laredo Police Department Sgt. Armando Elizondo, JET supervisor, said the severity of crimes committed by juveniles has worsened, and the violence is escalating.

It’s a two-fold problem, they said: gang activity has become more prevalent in the community, and there is a steady, ascending trend of juveniles working in conjunction with adults.

The problem One corner of Elizondo’s office has the trappings of a war room. A map of Laredo dominates a three-fold poster board, sections of the city sectioned off and highlighted with scrawled names of the gang that claims it as their stomping ground. Flanking the map are images of elaborate prison gang tattoos and photos of children as young as 8 years old flashing gang signs happily while sitting on a suburban curb.

Since the inception of JET in 1996, Elizondo has seen the same story play out over and over again.

“More juveniles are graduating from the mentality of a street gang to organized crime,” he said, explaining that it’s this increased graduation that is leading to higher numbers of violent crimes among juveniles.

Three major prison gangs thrive in Laredo, Elizondo said, and they use the multitude of street gangs as their recruiting pool.

Constant exposure to the gang lifestyle and the promise of easy money is often what lures kids in, he said, both in the back alleys and on the Internet.

One case in point is a site similar to MySpace, where hundreds of Laredo juveniles have posted their profiles, plastering photos of drugs, thousands of dollars in cash and guns, and boasting of gang memberships and rivalries.

Providing a snapshot of the intensifying violence, Elizondo said that last week alone, JET arrested six youths allegedly involved in drive-bys and aggravated assaults. In the last two weeks, the unit has arrested about 22 juveniles, mostly for felonies.

Four years ago, gangs fought with their fists — now they fight with weapons.

The 24-bed juvenile detention center has limited space, and offenders are often released within hours to their parents without posting bond, Elizondo said, freeing them to offend again.

“They’re back on the streets; they see this, and they tell the others, ‘Hey, they’ll let you go,’” he said.

It’s a situation organized prison gangs capitalize on, Elizondo said, soliciting young people to perpetrate high-stakes crimes such as drug and human smuggling schemes, assuring recruits that if they are caught, they will not face immediate consequences.

A possible solution Joe Espinoza, a gang intervention facilitator at United Independent School District, empties his pockets of strings of colored beads and even rosaries — gang insignias, he said — as he explained how serious his responsibility is.

According to UISD officials, more than 100 street gangs have been identified in Laredo, and at least 18 are active in the UISD school system. As a gang intervention facilitator, he helps identify gang members, informs the student’s affiliations to the school administration and their parents, organizes community projects, counsels students, mediates gang conflicts and confiscates gang paraphernalia, such as the necklaces.

In the line of duty, he has gone on home visits, watched children fall through the cracks and has been assaulted, but he continues to fight for the students he fears do not realize the “ride together, die together” mentality has cold consequences once they reach the prison gang levels, where it’s “blood in, blood out.”

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t have success stories. Espinoza beams when he describes students who walked away from gang life into a future rife with possibility. He likens his job to “chipping away at a cinder block.”

“We’re not going to save them all, but we are really making a difference,” he said.

The consensus among local authorities, including Espinoza, is clear: parental involvement may be the single-greatest factor in preventing or deterring juvenile crime.

Espinoza said the draw to gangs includes protection, power, money, sex, drugs and attention children may be lacking at home, explaining that it’s when “they go home and no one is there, that’s when these gangs come in.”

“Our kids aren’t born gang members,” he said. “Someone out there is teaching them these colors, these signs, these symbols.”

The key to stemming the tide of violence is to catch kids before they fall into street gangs, and pull them out before they become acquainted with adult prison gangs, he said.

For 24 years, County Judge-elect Danny Valdez has heard about 40 cases per week as a justice of the peace. The hefty workload mostly involves juveniles who are referred to court for truancy, delinquent conduct and disruptive behavior in the classroom, all indicators of burgeoning problems, he said. These cases can be the critical threshold in the lives of the students.

“We try to deal with those issues at that level before they get into those serious problems; it’s important that we nip it on that level,” Valdez said.

Ramirez said “throwing money at the problem” could certainly improve the system, particularly in expanding the existing staffs in Juvenile Probation Services and his own office to better their chances of having a “meaningful intervention.”

“It would also help our office and the judicial system in order to more quickly target those who are ‘probation proof,’” he said. “As soon as those individuals are flagged, the sooner we can do something a bit more direct, such as the (Texas Youth Commission).”

While Ramirez’s office once prosecuted cases with the juvenile’s interest as a priority, they now have a more “get-tough” approach in response to the chronic, snowballing violence, looking instead at the stiffest punishments such as determinate sentencing and adult certification first, he said.

To combat juvenile violence, it is tantamount not to give up on the kids, Espinoza said.
“We do have gangs in our community, we do have gangs in our schools, but we are doing something about it,” he said.

(Kirsten Crow may be reached at (956) 728-2557 or by e-mail at kirsten@lmtonline.com)