Smash hit

Every generation seems to think that it has the worst youth problem — so it might be worth remembering that in 1942, during the Second World War, at a time when people were supposedly all pulling together, four times as many youngsters were birched than in 1938.

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WASHINGTON

One sultry night in Washington last July, a young British political aide, Alan Senitt, was walking a female companion to her home in Georgetown, one of the city’s smartest and most peaceful neighbourhoods. Senitt, 27, who had arrived in the capital a few weeks earlier, had spent the evening with the woman and other friends, watching a film and dining at a restaurant.

As they approached the driveway of a mansion, the pair were attacked at gunpoint by three people, including at least one teenager. The woman, according to the police report, was dragged off by one assailant who threatened to rape her, snatched her purse and ripped the necklace from her throat.

As Senitt rushed to defend her, the other two attacked him. After he shouted to the woman to hand the attackers her wallet, his throat was slit and he died within minutes.

The crime shocked America’s capital city and four people, including a female getaway driver and a 15-year-old boy, have since been charged with murder. But this was not an isolated incident. Between July 1 and July 15 no fewer than 14 people were murdered in Washington, and the number of violent robberies rose by nearly a fifth. Teenagers were mostly to blame.

This year juvenile crime has jumped by 82 per cent in the District of Columbia. Of those arrested for robbery, 42 per cent were youngsters.

“Juveniles are playing a much more significant role in violent crime in Washington than in previous years,” says Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which organised a crime meeting of 50 US police chiefs and mayors in DC this summer.

Wexler says that assaults by juveniles often turn deadly and violent robberies are now a major source of income for juvenile criminals. “They are replacing drugs as one of the avenues for making a quick score,” he says.

Washington’s police chief, Charles Ramsey, was so alarmed by the surge in violence that on July 20 he declared a “crime emergency” and took the unprecedented step of imposing a 10pm curfew on under-18s.

Another innovative measure taken by the city’s authorities has been the establishment of youth courts run by teenagers themselves. Those who come before the court — for minor offences only — are judged by a jury of their peers. The idea is that if they are held responsible for minor offences they are less likely to move on to more serious crimes.Teenagers are usually sentenced to community service linked to their offence, and some are given adult mentors.

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