Young people in the Twin Cities are committing a growing number of severe and brazen crimes — even as the overall number of juvenile cases has receded below pre-pandemic levels.
Among the most common offenses in Hennepin County: auto thefts, gun possession, assault and robbery. Juveniles charged with homicide have more than doubled since 2021 compared with the three years prior.
"We are not talking about stealing candy bars from stores," said Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt, who has worked closely with kids most of her career and finds the recent intensity of juvenile crimes troubling. "These are indicators that we're in trouble."
Witt and other local leaders are hoping some solutions to that troubling trend may come out of the work of a panel that's been meeting at the State Capitol since this fall and will deliver its recommendations to the Legislature when it reconvenes in early 2024.
The Minnesota Legislature created the Working Group on Youth Interventions to improve how state and county agencies help young people charged with crimes.
Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, was chief sponsor of the bill that created the panel to tackle an issue Hennepin County leaders have long wanted state help addressing. Its co-chair is Hennepin County Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde, and Witt is among the panel's more than two dozen members.
The working group is part of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party-led Legislature's response to increased crime statewide since the coronavirus pandemic upended life in 2020. Champion agrees with local leaders that the state has a responsibility to ensure local governments have the resources to help youth caught up in the criminal justice system.
"Sometimes young people make boneheaded decisions," Champion said. "A setback can also be an opportunity for a comeback. How do we identify solutions that bring them back into law-abiding behavior?"