A crime statistic worthy of its own headline

The fact that Baltimore’s chronic problem with violent crime is finally being abated by smart law enforcement strategies and social science gets the big year-end headline: Homicides at historic lows. Here’s my take on that very positive development, published on Substack, and, for more background, here’s my recent interview and data dive with Ivan Bates, the Baltimore State’s Attorney.

But there’s one statistic, mentioned in passing in a New Year’s Day report from the Baltimore Police Department, that deserves its own bold headline: Fewer victims among Baltimore’s youth. Juvenile victims of homicides decreased by 78%; there were three in 2025 compared to 14 in 2024.

Having written many Sun columns over many years about youth violence, this number jumped out at me. I remember years when the BPD recorded more than 30 juvenile homicides. In 2003, the number reached 35.

It took a specific, intense program, focused on teenaged boys at high risk of being killed or doing the killing, to get that number down.

It was called Operation Safe Kids. In 2006, three years after it had been established by the Baltimore Health Department to identify at-risk teenagers and prevent them from falling into crime or an early grave, the number of juveniles killed in the city dropped significantly, from 31 in 2005 to 13. It was an intense program, with employees of several agencies tracking the kids day and night. Unfortunately, Operation Safe Kids went away, lost in the shuffle of mayors in City Hall.

These days, Roca, an even more intense intervention program, is doing the important work of keeping Baltimore teens and young adults alive and out of prison. It has been in place now for eight years, and it’s no stretch to believe Roca’s aggressive outreach is having a positive effect. Here’s my column on the program, from November 2024. The Baltimore Banner had a profile of Roca in August, and The Sun just published another.

Photo credit: Carol Guzy/Zuma via Alamy