PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — As carjackings in Philadelphia continue to rise, tripling from a few years ago, police say more than a third of the suspects they arrested last year are juveniles.
Of the 150 suspects arrested in 2021 for carjacking, 60 were juveniles.
“I cannot tell you what can be in the motivated minds of the young people doing this,” said Deputy Commissioner Ben Naish.
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“We know that some of the individuals committing these crimes that have been arrested, they have done other crimes. They have done other carjackings. And we think part of the allure is that they can just stay in the juvenile justice system, so we are concerned about that.”
He said they are seeing a lot of the teen suspects meander through the juvenile court system, sometimes charged with other offenses, but the result is lesser consequences.
When teens are charged as adults, a defense attorney usually petitions for them to be "decertified," meaning they are bounced back to juvenile court, which focuses more on rehabilitation and social services.
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But police say they have noticed teen suspects that they are arresting for carjackings have been arrested before.
“They have done other crimes. They have done other carjackings. And we think part of the allure is that they can just stay in the juvenile justice system, so we are concerned about that,” said Naish.
“If they think it is a crime that is not going to come back and harm them, we are going to be catching a lot of these folks. We are putting a lot of effort into this, so there are people, young people whose lives are going to be seriously disrupted and harmed forever, and that is the really sad thing.”
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According to the District Attorney’s dashboard, 94 of the 150 carjackings resulted in charges. More than half had cases tossed or withdrawn.
We’ve asked for verification of those numbers, but repeated requests have been ignored by the District Attorney's office.
KYW Newsradio has also asked the office if they are asking for teens to stay in adult court, or if they are tracking the information, but again our requests have gone unanswered.
