BALTIMORE — Wednesday, Baltimore City Council held their annual meeting to talk about crime reduction strategies especially as it relates to youth.
Shantay Jackson, who’s the director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, said leaders are one step closer to finding out what the youth curfew plan is going to look like.
Wednesday morning, a 15-year-old girl walked into a hospital after she was shot at an unknown location in Baltimore. City leaders said this type of incident is why they’re working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep our youth safe, and prevent this from happening again.
“I believe that Baltimore’s children are all of our children, and that we share a responsibility for their safety,” Jackson said.
In a city council meeting, leaders talked about the growing statistics of youth violence throughout our city and how they’re working to combat it. One of the methods includes developing a curfew management plan for summer.
“We’ve got city and state partners at the table, we’ve got community based partners and business partners at the table to make sure we are developing something that’s new, innovative and something that Baltimore has never seen before,” Jackson said.
Jackson said although it’s an all hands on deck approach with drafting this plan, they didn’t forget to include the people its impacting the most.
“ The Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success engaged over 300 of our children to ask them what engagement and connection really mean to them, so that we are not over programming in a way that continues to feel like school when it’s out of school time. In addition, simultaneously making sure that we’re being responsive to what they consider engaging and fun," Jackson said.
Statistics show since 2018 the number of young people arrested and facing adult charges between ages 14 to 17 averages around 200 people per year. So far, three arrests have been made to youth found with ghost guns as young as 13-years-old.
Jackson said addressing these issues in its entirety it’s what’s going to take to start bringing about change.
“We hear Mayor Scott say all the time we’re investing in the promise that is your future. You are our children, we want to see you grow up, want to see you engaged, we want to see you happy, and just really excited about the fact that, the plan we will be releasing in the coming weeks youth voice played an active part in that plan,” Jackson said.
Jackson said the draft for the youth curfew plan will be presented to the mayor this Friday, and the official plan is prepared to be presented Memorial Day weekend.
