Youth violent crime in Windsor was up in 2022 - and above the 5-year average

Youth crime was up in Windsor in 2022, according to the police force's annual report.

In 2022, 254 youths were involved in crime as either an accused party, arrested, charged or an offender, an 11.9 per cent increase over 2021's total of 227, according to the report.

Violent crime committed by young people was up 35 per cent over 2021 numbers from 115 to 156 youths.

That number is higher than the five-year average of 149.

The number of young people committing property crimes was also up in 2022, jumping 32 per cent from 2021.

We're hoping that you know through that collaborative effort that we settle our statistics alittle bit more and that we see that downward trend.- Chief Jason Bellaire

Chief Jason Bellaire said the force has been trying to focus on youth crime.

"We're working closer with groups like Youth Diversion and we're trying to get more interventions in youth crime to prevent the evolution into adult crime," he said.

"One explanation is sometimes that our involvement is creating a higher statistic. But certainly, you know, I can't rule out that there's just simply an increase in youth crime this year."

Bellaire also said he hopes the work the force is doing with its partners in diverting youth away from crime, like Youth Diversion and New Beginnings, will start paying off.

"Our investigators meet with them all the time and it's something that we hope that the next time around with the report, the good news is that we've made the appropriate interventions, not just as a police service but with the other agencies that are involved with the youth interventions," he said.

"We're hoping that you know through that collaborative effort that we settle our statistics alittle bit more and that we see that downward trend that we like to see."

There were some declines in crimes committed by young people.

The number of young people committing drug-related crimes wasdown 14 from 2021, to two.

And breaches of release conditions, failure to attend court violations and offences that fall into the "other crime" category were down 30 per cent from 2021.

Youth Diversion executive director, Joanna Conrad, said there are a couple of contributing factorsto the spike in numbers.

"I know that the numbers went down during COVID," Conrad said. "So now that we're out of all of that, I would say that is a contributing factor for sure."

She also said the work they do with police can also cause numbers to jump.

"We've been working very hard with respect to educating the patrol officers about pre-charged diversion," Conrad said. "So whenever we typically do these sessions, we do see an increase in referral."

For John Elliott, executive director with the Sandwich Teen Action Group, his first question is, what are these kids doing after school.

"Because typicallyif they're hanging around in the streets idly, trouble will find them or they'll find trouble and it's not good because you start to lose them," Elliott said.

"You can't save all of them but, you know, if you provide some positive mentors witha place where they can go and andit's safe, you know, chances are you're going tosave a lot of them."

Stacey Yannacopoulus, executive director at New Beginnings, said the increase is sad, but unsurprising.

"We've had you know, almost a 13 per cent increase in youth that we're serving and you know, most of those are youth that were either,charged, accused of or affiliated in some sense with, you know, with the criminal behaviour," she said.

"So I can't say I'm surprised, but I do know that there's really strong efforts in place to address this."

Yannacopoulus said there's no silver bullet when it comes to curbing youth crime.

"There's never one single risk factor or like root cause for youth crime," she said.

"That's why it's so important that we're taking a really like integrated kind of collaborative approach because we do want to, you know, take a really hard look at all of those risk factors involved."

Social media challenges playing a role

Looking at the numbers, Conrad also sees social media playing into spikes in youth crime, especially when it comes to the many challenges that come across TikTok's platform.

"Young people are typically pursuing 'clout'for, you know, an online reputation and the way in which to get that, especially for young males, is typically to do extreme violent acts," Conrad said.

"It usually results in them engaging in various violent offences. And then recording it and then posting it online because they know they're going to get the views. They're going to get followers. And as silly as I might sound, it really is all about the likes. It's very much about those followers and gaining that online reputation."