A 65% increase in homicides committed by kids
As students across the country returned to classrooms this fall, four Las Vegas teenagers returned to a court room to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter for beating their classmate to death in a violent attack that was captured on video and shared on online.
Days later, police in Maryland said a 16-year-old who had been the "victim, witness or suspect" in 10 previous incidents shot and killed his classmate in the bathroom on his first day at school.
The following week, a Florida teen was charged with murder for stabbing his mother in what officials called a "cold-blooded murder” less than two years after he was arrested, but never charged, for fatally shooting his father in Oklahoma.
Though murder and violent crime in the United States has decreased in recent years, homicides committed by children have risen dramatically, jumping 65% − from 315 in 2016 to 521 in 2022, according to a report in September from the Council on Criminal Justice.
Mass killings by the shockingly young triggered national attention and scrutiny in recent months, like 14-year-old student charged in a massacre at his rural Georgia high school last month, but the spike in homicides by young people is largely driven by more routine attacks.
Experts say an influx of firearms combined with residual effects from the COVID-19 pandemic and threats on social media may be to blame.
During the pandemic, Americans bought tens of millions of guns, which may be easier to access than parents realize. Children lost access to key social supports and violence prevention programs that can help reduce crime. And they spent more time online, where experts say threats and taunts can escalate into deadly conflict.
“The important issue here is any one of these things in isolation doesn't have the impact,” said David Muhammad, executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. “But the combination of this horrible perfect storm of challenges all culminated to produce this overall increase in gun violence.”
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