THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 2, 1995 TAG: 9501020091
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
Juveniles prosecuted in the District of Columbia are piling up gun charges at three times the rate of their adult counterparts and are arming themselves at twice the pace they did five years ago.
In 1993, one of every six cases brought to juvenile court involved a gun. That compares with one in 17 cases in adult court.
Those statistics, from a computer analysis by The Washington Post of juvenile cases between 1988 and September 1994, give the first detailed portrait of how prevalent guns are among youths in the city.
Gun offenses weren't even tallied in the juvenile court system's annual reports until 1991; today they are the fastest-growing category of crime, rising even as drug and auto theft prosecutions fall.
On some Mondays, when youths arrested over the weekend go to court, nearly half face gun charges.
The surge is a dramatic change from 1988, when one in 12 juvenile cases included a gun charge.
When arrested, most juveniles refuse to incriminate themselves or risk retaliation on the street by answering police questions about their gun source, say officers and officials who handle juvenile cases.
KEYWORDS: STATISTICS GUNS JUVENILE by CNB