By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh

School shootings and stabbings are both up in the 2022-23 school year.
As reported by the NY Post, three teenagers have been killed near their schools and at least 18 havebeen either stabbed or shot in gang related or juvenile gun-toting during the current school year. In the previous year, by contrast, one child was killed and eight were shot or stabbed, as per reports.

While experts blame New York state’s lenient juvenile justice reforms for the troublesome jump, parents say the schools need to step up and beef up security.
On Saturday, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell held an event in Harlem, fielding questions from kids and getting them more familiar with the police department. Parents and family members took this as an opportunity to voice their security concerns and urge the NYPD to do more to keep kids safe in schools. “We need to have more security. More police around the schools,” Washington Heights grandmother Mayra Palacio, who helps take care of her grandkids, told The Post.

“In schools, the teachers and staff members need to be more preoccupied when the kids are leaving school. They need to have heightened security inside and outside of the schools.”

The event was held at the Police Athletic League in Harlem and sponsored by the Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E. anti-violence group. “Kids leaving out of school, out of sporting events, there’s a shooting — it puts me on edge. My kids are small,” said Harlem resident Marsha Taylor, 53, whose children are 8 and 10 and attend the Global Community Charter School Harlem. “You never know what can happen anytime anywhere,” she said, adding that she makes them take cellphones to school just in case.

Albany’s new lax law Raise the Age, means kids and even gang members can’t be tried as an adult till they are 18. The youngsters know they can get away with even serious criminal offenses without being held accountable, said Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon. “They’ve gotten a message that it’s OK to carry and use guns,” he told the Post.
Fellow Democrat Melinda Katz, the Queens DA, agreed, also voicing an appeal against reform Raise the Age. “Just as there is no arguing that reform was long overdue, it is obvious that those reforms have had unintended consequences that threaten public safety and need to be addressed urgently,” a Katz spokesman said.

About ten percent of shooting victims in the city are now juveniles, The Post reported per a police source. The number of gun arrests for juveniles 18 and under has soared to 448 in 2022 — a 64precent jump since 2017, when there were just 275. Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, which helps craft NYPD policy, said teens used to be picking up guns at 16 or 17. “Now it’s getting to be 13 or 14, if not 12, so you have guns permeating the youth culture and you also see guns
on social media,” Aborn said.

The NYPD said it has increased its presence at schools, and the Panel for Educational Policy recently approved a $43 million contract to install new locking systems at every school. Experts point out, however, that this move is meant to keep violent intruders out, but does not help stop violent students.

“Student safety is a priority for the NYPD and we regularly monitor and evaluate crime conditions in andaround schools,” the NYPD said in a statement.