(The Center Square) — The Caddo Parish Juvenile Justice and Related Services Committee met this week to discuss juvenile crime statistics for 2024 and 2025 and what is being implemented to lower juvenile crime rates in the parish.
There were 326 new admissions in 2024, according to the report released in Monday’s meeting, with the month of May exhibiting the highest intake of new admissions. According to Juvenile Services Director Andrew Randall, this is a usual pattern reflected when juvenile crime increases when school ends and graduation has taken place.
For 2025, the juvenile detention center showed 34 new admissions just in January. The most common intake crime this year so far is domestic abuse battery usually involving a child committing acts of battery against someone in the home.
When addressing the demographic breakdown statistics, Randall noted that the highest population of residents in the detention center is currently black males ages 12-15.
Of all the crimes committed by residents in the detention center in 2024, the top two reported were simple burglary and illegal possession of a handgun. While Randall did not share numbers for these arrests, he said they removed 43 handguns from juveniles last year.
The truancy issue present in Caddo Parish could be a reason for some of the crimes committed by juveniles, said Randall. He argued that if juveniles are not in school, they have more time to be out in the community to break into homes and businesses.
While they have significantly reduced the amount of handguns juveniles have possession of, the detention center is still working alongside the Violent Crimes Abatement Team to continue to handle the situation.
A current partnership with the school board is looking at what schools are reporting the crimes and where the crimes are taking place. Some schools involve law enforcement while others do not, which can severely impact the numbers reported.
Randall shared that this reporting in stats could make one school look more crime-driven, while in reality, that school could be more law enforcement involved than other under-reported schools. The committee did not share these numbers during the meeting.
The detention center has many areas to help juveniles coming in, including a mental health court, resources to help children coming in who are victims of trafficking, drug courts, GPS monitoring systems and various educational resources juveniles can utilize while in detention.
