Juvenile officer claims easy access to guns could be reason for frequent juvenile crime

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Violent juvenile crime is rising, according to data from the state and the Greene County chief juvenile officer Bill Prince. The ABC 17 News team took a look at the data following a Wednesday night shooting in Columbia.

Data from the Robert L. Perry Juvenile Justice Center shows that the number of juveniles admitted is lower in 2024 than it was in 2023. Here's a breakdown of people in the center during a five-year period of available data:

• 2024: 143
• 2023: 161
• 2022: 112
• 2021: 114
• 2020: 112

The 2024 data is the newest, with 2025 data expected to come out this year.

The top crime for juveniles in 2024 was weapons offenses, which 31% of juveniles committed, and is followed by "felony persons," which makes up 28% of offenses.

Prince, who is also the president of the Missouri Juvenile Justice Association, said a report he read showed the number of violent crimes youth are committing is rising, but overall juvenile crime is down.

"The juvenile crime that still is existing seems to be more violent, you know, more homicides, more serious assaults and things of that nature," Prince said.

He said one potential cause is juveniles' access to guns.

"It's the easy access to firearms by these kids; they all have guns. In the old days, kids got into a beef with each other, they'd have fist fights and those sorts of things, and people tend to recover from fist fights better than they do from gunshots," Prince said.

Prince said the other side of this is the youth's willingness to use guns.

"The average person's brain doesn't get hardwired until we're about 25 years old," Prince said. "We're dealing with these kids whose brains are still developing, who act on impulse mode, and that combined with the gun, it just never adds up for some people."

When juveniles are involved in violent crimes, like murder, they are certified as adults in court.

The Boone County prosecutor said over email that he's seen an uptick in these certifications over the years.

Policy manager at Empower Missouri, Gwen Smith-Moore, said she and her team talk with the attorneys and people who are directly involved with certifying juveniles.

"There has been a general increase across the board in the number of certifications happening annually," Smith-Moore said. "I don't think that a rise in youth crime is necessarily the reason for that."