E-Mail This Article to a Friend VIOLENT CRIME Teenage wasteland BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

Last weekend’s brutal death of 16-year-old Bang Mai in a bloody melee in South Boston was the fifth juvenile homicide in Boston this year. Six other murder victims have been age 18 or 19. Can we call this a crisis yet?

Those 11 teenage victims already total more juvie homicides than Boston’s seen in any recent full year. And it could have been much worse. At least 17 other people under the age of 20 have been shot non-fatally in the Hub this year, including a 15-year-old hit in the head by a bullet on July 5. Many others have been stabbed.

Statistics obtained from the Boston Police Department show that the up-tick extends far beyond the few young people who end up dead. Local juveniles have become increasingly involved in violent behavior. As the accompanying chart shows, arrests of youths age 16 and under for violent crimes jumped 14 percent last year, to its highest total in the past 10 years. (As reported here earlier [see "Teen Homicides Return to the Hub," January 2, 2004], six victims ages 14 to 16 were murdered in Boston in 2003 — more than in the previous four years combined.)

Violent crime arrests in the broader 14-24 age group were also up sharply.

That’s in stark contrast to the national trend, according to statistics kept by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2002 (the most recent year available), arrests of those under 18 for violent crimes was down three percent from the previous year, 17 percent over five years, and 29 percent over 10 years.

Violent crime arrests, Boston

Age 16 and under Age 14 to 24

2003 629 1925

2002 554 1791

2001 509 1706

2000 589 1802

1999 555 1790

1998 488 1821

1997 493 1694

1996 454 1289

1995 412 1441

1994 438 1635

Source: Boston Police Department