Throughout the pandemic, a flurry of alarming news coverage and inflammatory rhetoric from politicians have appeared in national and local media highlighting serious violent crimes by youth. This report explains why these calls for a return to get-tough youth justice policies are misguided, based on a false narrative regarding recent trends in youth crime and what actually works to prevent delinquency and promote youth success. The Sentencing Project’s review of the available data about youth violence during the pandemic finds scarce evidence of a youth-led crime wave. Rather, most of the data suggest that youth violence has been flat or declining. The overall number of serious violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) committed by youth also declined in 2020.

Source: Fox News June 14, 2022 13:08 UTC