Jonathan Glenn, the manager of Wake County's Juvenile Crime Prevention Program, delivered a report to the county's Public Safety Committee outlining the program's work during the past year and its plans moving forward. The meeting had been scheduled before Friday's shooting at the northeast Raleigh mall.
"The number of young people who are involved in the juvenile justice system is really, really small compared to the broader youth population," Glenn said.
The report found that 3,556 delinquent complaints involving youth ages 6 to 17 were received last year, a decrease of about 4.2% from 2024.
"We're happy to see fewer complaints coming in," Glenn said. "These (roughly) 3,500 complaints represent 729 discrete youth. What this actually means is that we have a number of youth who are coming up on multiple charges."
Glenn said prevention programs must continue to evolve to address the differing needs of young people at various ages.
"Our programs have to be more nimble and dynamic," he said. "The way that you work with a 16-17-year-old is different from the way you work with a 12-13 -year-old."
He also cited changes in youth behavior since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly around socialization and increased use of digital platforms.
According to Pew Research Center, the percentage of teenagers 13-to-17 years old who have access to a smartphone has increased from 73% in 2015 to 95% in 2024, while the percentage who have access to a tablet computer has jumped from 58% to 70% during the same time period.
Further, Pew Research Center found the percentage of teenagers who use the Internet "almost constantly" has nearly doubled from 24% in 2015 to 46% in 2024.
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"It is necessary for us as the adults in the room to be able to figure out ways to take that tool and use it in a way that is more healthy," said Dawn Blagrove, a lawyer and Executive Director of Emancipate NC.
Blagrove urged the county to focus resources more directly on youth who repeatedly come into contact with the justice system.
"It's very encouraging that the numbers are going down," Blagrove said. "But I also think that at this point, we need to start addressing this issue with a scalpel and not a butcher knife. We know where the issues are. We need to be very proactive in making sure that we are touching the children who we are seeing over and over again."
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She also suggested investing more heavily in mental health support within schools.
"Invest them into creating in-school therapists where our children could go and have regular therapy sessions. Even if it was just once a month for 15 or 20 minutes, to me, that would be a much better use of those resources," Blagrove said.
For more serious crimes, particularly those involving firearms, Blagrove highlighted the importance of further interventions before incidents escalate to that level.
"The reality is that children don't wake up with access to guns and weapons. They don't wake up ready to just one day shoot people. That is a progression that is a result of the ignoring by the adult in those children's lives of them crying out and crying out and crying out. That's on us. If a child has picked up a gun, that is a societal failure. That is not a failure of a child, that is a failure of the adult in their life," said Blagrove.
The Juvenile Crime Prevention Council reported serving a little more than 1,000 youth last year and providing funding to 12 programs across Wake County, as officials continue to look for ways to reduce youth involvement in the justice system and prevent future incidents.