Is the nation’s capital descending into a crime-ridden dystopia?
Washington, D.C., now finds itself in the middle of a teenage crime wave, with adolescents engaging in serious crimes such as murder, robbery, and carjackings — all while public officials swat away public concerns.
As the Washington Free Beacon notes, more than 63 percent of car robbery arrests this year have involved underage perps.
In one case, a D.C. resident who was only 14 years old was charged with felony murder in July. In another case, a 15-year-old shot Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson, Jr. and murdered another teenager. But because D.C. law establishes that minors cannot be held in jail beyond their 21st birthday, the killer was sentenced to only six years in prison.
The mother of the slain victim expressed her outrage in remarks to Fox 5, saying: “I think if you’re old enough to shoot someone or take someone’s car with a gun, you should be able to do life in jail, you should be able to do the time for the crime, ’cause I’m never going to see my son again.”
Then there’s the case of five teenagers who late last month were arrested after they were caught on video using a stolen vehicle to try to carjack a man. Some of the suspects were released immediately, while others will face lenient sentences. One of the suspects is a 13-year-old girl who had been involved in a series of crimes spanning four days.
“It’s very bad for [the] community. … I am scared to go to D.C. [to] work,” the victim of the attempted carjacking, a food delivery driver, told Fox 5. “Why this age—why not go to school?”
Despite the public concerns over the rising lawbreaking among the city’s youth, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, a Democrat, has held to his view that criminal justice should focus on rehabilitation, downplaying the situation with remarks such as “kids are kids” who should not “be treated as adults.”
Earlier this year, Schwalb opposed the “Get Tough on Crime” bill, which would expand pretrial detention for minors deemed dangerous.
Schwalb’s website has a section promoting his vision of “restorative justice,” which reads:
Restorative justice is a theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It is a victim-centered approach to addressing crime and conflict, which provides the victim and the young person who caused harm a chance to opt into a facilitated conversation about what happened, how everyone was affected, and what needs to happen to resolve the matter so that it never happens again.
Restorative justice hails from indigenous practices in Native American, West African, and New Zealand cultures. The theory of restorative justice is built on extensive research and has proven positive outcomes in rigorous studies around the world.
Schwalb’s rhetoric is not new, but rather a longtime leftist talking point about rehabilitation and being merciful to lawbreakers — even while such mercy clearly is anything but compassionate to the victims and their loved ones.
In another example of the inversion of criminal justice, California has been paying for an imprisoned man who murdered his two infant children to have gender reassignment surgeries, including breast implants and augmentations — even while he sits on death row.
In the case of D.C., the situation rapidly developing as city leaders fail to address the criminality among the city’s youth brings to mind the dystopian societies depicted in novels such as A Clockwork Orange and The Warriors, both of which were famously adapted into films and are set in fictional futures in which law and order has broken down to such a degree that violent gangs of teenagers control the streets.
The nation’s capital is following in the footsteps of other Democrat-run cities. Chicago, once known for its universities, museums, architecture, and strong cultural-academic communities, is now virtually the murder capital of America, with sky-high homicide rates the norm.
San Francisco, likewise once a bastion of art, commerce, science, and high culture, has become a literal dumping ground for homelessness run rampant and serial theft-robbery the authorities are unwilling to address.
And as The New American recently reported, San Francisco is the home of piracy’s comeback. Thieves and marauders are targeting marinas and boaters along the city’s coast, making use of small watercraft.
Writing at American Thinker, author Monica Showalter rues, “So in addition to having to watch the house, the car and the shop for break-ins by armed robbers, some of whom have been found to be connected to Mexico’s notorious cartels, heaven help them if they’ve got a boat.”
Is all this turning a blind eye to crime accidental? Or deliberate? Franklin Roosevelt famously said that “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Anarchy and lawlessness create a breeding ground for the rise of big government tyranny, which is precisely the end goal the Left wants to achieve.
