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Mayor Rybak Promotes New Police Juvenile Crime Unit
Unit is Part of Broader Minneapolis Effort to Reduce Juvenile Robberies and Assaults
NEWS RELEASE
June 14, 2005
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Police Chief Tim Dolan will hold a community forum to discuss the progress of the new Juvenile Unit created in the Minneapolis Police Department. The Juvenile Unit investigates robberies, assaults, and family violence involving youth under 18. The main goal of the effort currently is to help reduce the recent increase in robberies, many of which are being committed by juveniles.
Due to the efforts of the Juvenile Unit, the number of juvenile criminal cases processed by the MPD has already more than doubled. Since opening on May 6, the Juvenile Unit has processed 125% more cases in their first month than compared to May 2005.
The creation of the Juvenile Unit is part of a multi-pronged effort to reduce the rise in juvenile crime that is fueling the recent crime increase in Minneapolis. The city-wide Safe City Initiative that Mayor Rybak and Chief Dolan launched last month included efforts to fight the root causes of juvenile crime by increasing the number of youth summer jobs, expanding youth recreation, and out-recruiting gangs with aggressive outreach to more disconnected youth. The City will also strengthen probation tools for youth offenders to prevent repeat crimes.
This month the City is awarding $250,000 in grants for community-based programs that target the most disconnected youth. These grants will go to new or existing programs that either have proven or promise to literally out-recruit the gangs.
The Youth Coordinating Board announced this week that they have secured funding to begin the summer youth recreation program Phat Summer on June 19. Phat Summer expects to serve 6,000 youth this summer at 24 sites across Minneapolis.
“Addressing juvenile crime is our most immediate problem,” Rybak said. “We must keep fighting this battle upstream. We can’t arrest the problem of crime away. There’s a time for tough enforcement – and we’ll do that – but we need to get at the root causes of crime. We must prevent crime by creating an environment of hope for our youth.”
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