Violent youth crimes that appear to be the rise in Waterloo region are getting the attention of police and a local MPP who believes more needs to be done to prevent youth from ending up on the wrong side of the law.
Over the past few months alone, youth as young as 12 have been involved in shootings, robberies and car thefts.
Last weekend, a Cambridge teen was wounded in a targeted shooting while the week before, police nabbed a 13-year-old Cambridge boy in connection to six break ins.
Earlier this month, three teens from Brampton were arrested following an attempted jewelry store heist in Kitchener, and in August police charged a 12-year-old Kitchener girl and two other teens with numerous offences, including robbery with a firearm after a man was shot near Galt Collegiate Institute.
Kitchener South-Hespeler MPP Jess Dixon believes it all points to gaps in the system, but Waterloo region police chief Mark Crowell says it's not as bad as it appears on the surface.
"Twelve year olds should be playing with Lego, not guns," Dixon said. "We need to keep on addressing these issues and expand on our already vast network of prevention in schools and the community."
"No one is born evil," says the former Crown prosecutor who, for more than a decade before entering provincial politics, spent time working to put the most violent young offenders behind bars.
But Crowell says, while the spotlight has been on a few recent cases, data from Statistics Canada shows crime among youth remains steady.
Recent violence involving firearms, of course, has Crowell concerned for the community, but he says Waterloo Regional Police Service continues to look at the issue and how to address it in a broader sense.
"There's no doubt that the issues related to youth violence are real ones and we're really monitoring the local trends," said Crowell.
"We've also heard the same concerns echoed across the educational sector in Ontario where communities and boards of education are also looking at reported rates of violence, suspensions, expulsions and dangers within schools."
A recent report from the Youth Planning Table shows that youth crime rates have virtually stabilized over the past four years, with a yearly average of over 15,000 interactions with youth aged 17 or younger.
The report also states that charges against youth aged 12-17 have increased by 28 per cent, when comparing the first three quarters of 2022 to 2023. In this same timeframe, youth diversions have increased by seven per cent and the total number of youth involved in crimes rose by 11.5 per cent.
Crowell recognizes that the number of firearms offences has also increased, and the links to organized crime are at some of the highest in the region's history.
This concerning level of youth-related crime has prompted WRPS to enact a Youth Engagement Strategy (YES) to get to vulnerable children at an early age and educate them on the dangers of crime and offer them pathways out of bad situations.
"Our approach locally and the purpose of launching the Youth Engagement Strategy is how do we move beyond the traditional relationship of police and young people and the relationship to schools and build a holistic strategy that can look at it in its totality to address youth violence broadly," added Crowell.
"Every report of a young person involved in violence in our community is a call to action for us and all of our partners."
Dixon references an approach called the Glasgow Model that saw knife crime reduced among youth by over 30 per cent, turning one of the most violent cities in the Western world into a safer community.
"This holistic approach saw crime drop among youth in a relatively short amount of time and I would love to see some of those strategies implemented here," said Dixon.
The Glasgow Model saw knife crime being treated more as a public health matter instead of a policing one and offered diversion programs such as relocation, housing and employment.
Many who were associated with gangs took the government up on this offer and crime dropped significantly.
The YES looks to adopt some of these same principles and address the root causes of youth violence and give those who may be susceptible or already involved in organized crime a way out.
"We will be working every day so that every neighbourhood, every family and every young person has an opportunity to succeed," said Crowell. "We are not doing this alone, we are working with so many amazing partners all over the region to actually make a change."
