Juvenile crimes are down in the city of Bismarck. The 2007 Police Youth Bureau Annual Report shows there were about eighteen hundred fifty citations given to juveniles last year. This is down seven percent from 2006. Brad Feldman looks into the report and sees where police say they need to put more emphasis. A seven percent drop in juvenile crimes is a good sign for the Bismarck Police Department. (Police Chief Keith Witt/ Bismarck Police Department) I think youth in our community are making better choices. Avoiding behavior that gets them in trouble with police. Topping the list of citations is Minor in Possession or Minor in Consumption of Alcohol. Bismarck Police issued three hundred and forty-four of these citations in 2007. Although this number is down from 2006... it still remains a top concern for the department. (Police Chief Keith Witt/ Bismarck Police Department) It's the simple fact that they are illegally in possession or having illegally consumed alcohol. Witt says they have made progress with retailers when it comes to minors trying to get alcohol. He says where extra enforcement is needed is cracking down on those people supplying the alcohol to minors. (Police Chief Keith Witt/ Bismarck Police Department) We'll continue to focus on those situations where we do surveillance of off sale primarily off-sale establishments where adults are going in legally purchasing the alcohol but then illegally transferring it or supplying it to the juveniles. And, Witt says when juveniles are under the influence they make more poor choices. Another area of concern for the department is an increase in terrorizing citations. Last year nineteen juveniles were cited for threatening another person. This is up from only twelve reports from the year before. (Police Chief Keith Witt/ Bismarck Police Department) Twenty years ago if a kid made a threat in school you know I am just going to bring a gun to school and shoot you you know I think quite often a teacher would deal with it or parents would deal with it. But in today's society people have a different understanding or different recognition of hazards of that due to what is going on in our society so they are much more apt to report that to police. Witt says the education programs offered by the Police Youth Bureau and other organizations help reduce the number of citations issued to juveniles. He says these efforts will continue to be looked at and changed to improve on these numbers in the future. Brad Feldman KX News Some of the other most frequent violations by juveniles include unruly behavior, curfew, disorderly conduct, shoplifting, theft of property and possession of marijuana and drug paraphenalia.
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Added: Mar 27, 2008 |
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