Young Offenders Growing More Violent, Brazen

Nov. 25, 2012
Stockton, Calif. is seeing more juvenile offenders committing heinous offenses.

STOCKTON, Calif. -- Arnold Taylor was 17 years old when he shot an elderly employee of Genova Bakery after the man refused to give up his wallet.

Aurelio Espinoza, 16, and Isaiah Flores, 17, were recently convicted of second-degree murder for the fatal beating and shooting of a robbery co-conspirator.

Carlos Zendejas and Raymond Valles Jr., both 17, are approaching a court trial in the slaying of a 29-year-old man outside a Stockton nightclub.

All are minors charged as adults.

Along with the city's uptick in crime, the local court is seeing more juvenile offenders committing heinous offenses that land them in the adult justice system.

It's not a surprising trend to officials, who say gangs and gun violence are to blame for the increase, specifically in Stockton, and that such activity tends to be committed by juveniles and young adults.

The city's gang problem had been somewhat controlled in the past decade before the economy tanked and the police force was reduced by 100 officers, officials say. And they note a direct correlation between the reductions and rising crime.

"Just having police on the streets is a deterrent," Supervising Deputy District Attorney Michael Mulvihill said.

The District Attorney's Office also reduced staff by 30 percent since 2009, virtually eliminating the agency's misdemeanor department.

Because of the lack of resources countywide, the teens committing smaller crimes are quickly graduating to more serious crimes, Mulvihill said.

"Any parent knows if you tell a child not to do something and they do it anyway, you have to punish them," Mulvihill said. It's the same for criminals.

"A lot of them start out with minor crimes," he said. "The next thing you know, they're snatching chains from people's necks."

Even with tougher punishment in the adult court system, the best prevention strategy proved nationwide has been adequate and community policing, said John Phillips, a University of the Pacific professor emeritus of criminology.

"People don't calculate the cost of getting caught. That's just not the way criminals think," Phillips said. "They think, 'Let's look around to see if we'll get caught. Is there someone who will put a stop to this? A noisy neighbor? Is a police officer going to see me?'

"It's the likelihood of getting caught that counts," he said.

Stockton had placated a spike in violence from the mid-1990s with increased police visibility and community policing strategies, such as crime prevention programs, intelligence operations and deterrents like enhanced lighting in troubled areas, Phillips said.

"You never knew you prevented something because you prevented it," Phillips said. "The police dominated their territory up until a couple of years ago. What we've done is we retrieved. We were winning. At least we weren't losing."

San Joaquin County Probation Department data reflect the ballooning violence among young offenders.

Of the county's 112 wards awaiting adjudication in juvenile custody as of Nov. 16, 47 of them are charged as adults. At least 90 percent of them used a deadly weapon in the commission of their crime.

"It's a huge percentage," Chief Probation Officer Stephanie James said. "It's probably the biggest trend we've seen."

Five years ago, that number of juveniles with adult charges was 18.

Criminals are aware the city has a slim Police Department, Stockton police spokesman Officer Joe Silva said.

But the department is in the early stages of addressing the crime surge with creative approaches even under limited resources.

Examples include the Community Response Team, which focuses on the city's problem areas; a mulitagency gang task force; a partnership with California Highway Patrol, which is providing extra officers for the task force; and community dialogue through public forums and networking websites.

There is Operation Peacekeepers, a program to reach out to at-risk youth, and Operation Ceasefire, a program recently reintroduced to Stockton that focuses on reaching youth on the streets. Operation Ceasefire was used in the 1990s to curb Stockton's crime.

"We've also seen more citizens wanting Neighborhood Watch groups," Silva said. "So our community service officers are out conducting these meetings and outreaching with these communities and educating them on crime issues here in Stockton.

"Our long-term goal is to reduce violent crime in the city of Stockton," Silva said. "Right now, the immediate goal is to go after gang members and people using guns as a way to commit their crimes."

Silva said the department has seized about 500 guns already this year.

Prosecutors say residents should be concerned about the crime rate, but more importantly, they should be willing to take part in a solution.

Often youth in gang-infested neighborhoods are raised to view police as the enemy, and some come from generations of gangs.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau said youth offenders usually come into the court justice system when it's too late for prevention. At that point, they display a lack of basic Western values like respect, trust, charity and empathy.

"These are just basic, nonpartisan ideas," Himelblau said. "We are the court of last resort. The people who should be more upset about this is the community. ... We need to look at it from a sociological standpoint."

Copyright 2012 - The Record, Stockton, Calif.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service

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