Carjacking: Newest Viral ‘Sport,’ say Police
Carjacking has made an alarming resurgence during the past two years of the pandemic. Officials say that the most troubling part of the trend is that many of the people charged with armed carjacking, or in some cases even murder, are children, some of whom are only 11 years old.
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Carjacking has made an alarming resurgence during the past two years of the pandemic, with incidences numbering in the thousands in cities around the country, and officials say that the most troubling part of the trend is that many of the people charged with armed carjacking, or in some cases even murder, are children, some of whom are only 11 years old, reports the New York Times.
Young people are more likely to be caught, criminal justice experts say, and thus show up disproportionately in arrest numbers, such as in Washington D.C. where juvenile carjacking cases have tripled despite a 60 percent decrease in the number of juvenile cases in virtually every other category of violent crime.
More than half of those arrested on carjacking charges in Washington in the past year were under 18 and of the 151 carjacking arrests in 2021, 85 involved juveniles with prior criminal records. Meanwhile, a study by the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab found that young people were more likely than in past years to have no prior record and “more likely to live in areas with lower internet access and school attendance, especially during the pandemic.”
In addition, the closure of recreation centers and schools in 2020 left young people with few places to relieve stress, take the usual teenage risks or make a name for themselves. With few outlets, social media has taken over as places where kids can hang out and show off, prompting a fad of carjacking as sport and competition to go viral.
