July 25 — Portland police say they are concerned about an increase in teenagers involved in violent crimes. But there is no data available to support that claim — and some juvenile defense lawyers are concerned about the message police are sending.
“I’ve been on the police force for 38 years; 20 or 30 years ago, we were dealing with 30-year-olds, not teenagers,” Maj. Robert Martin said at a news conference Sunday. month. “The teenagers drank beer and maybe smoked marijuana. But we didn’t see them shooting at each other.”
There have been 23 reports of gunshots in Portland so far this year, but only two people have been shot, according to data provided by the department. That’s below the recent record in 2022, when there were 56 reports of gunshots and 13 people were shot.
But several state and local officials said they could not provide data on how many teenagers were involved in those shootings. The Press Herald requested data from the Portland Police Bureau, the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office and the Maine Judicial Branch on how many teenagers have been charged in shootings so far this year, but none were able to fulfill the request.
The Maine Judiciary said there would be too many types of shooting-related charges to search them all and find the right cases. The district attorney’s office said it simply does not have that data and would not elaborate. The Portland Police Bureau said its system cannot easily break down reports by age — a task that would have to be done manually — and its crime analyst is working on overdose statistics.
Instead, Martin referred a reporter to previous investigations as evidence of the rise in youth-related violent crimes.
He said he saw groups of teenagers aged 16 to 19 involved in “gang activities” such as shooting, drug dealing and possessing “ghost guns” – untraceable firearms that can be ordered online on parts without serial numbers. An investigation uncovered a “significant drug trafficking network” in several cities following a shooting in February.
Many of these teenagers, he said, were involved in less serious crimes when they were younger, but their crimes have become more serious, now involving firearms and drugs.
Last month, Portland police arrested two teenagers who were allegedly found with more than 60 grams of cocaine.
“In the past, this environment didn’t have conflicts between drug traffickers very often,” Martin said at a news conference. “Lately, it seems like we have a weekly conflict between rival drug dealers and drug networks. That’s why we’re facing this, I call it ‘crime in big cities’. What they’re seeing in Detroit and some other larger cities, we’re seeing in Portland, Maine.”
Detroit had a total of 804 non-fatal shootings and 252 homicides in 2023, according to city data, which equates to four homicides per 10,000 people. Compare that to Portland, which recorded 0.3 homicides per 10,000 people, or less than a tenth of Detroit’s rate.
Martin also expressed concern that families in dense residential areas such as Kennedy Park and Grant Street were being put at risk.
“It’s like we’re living in a video game, ‘Grand Theft Auto,'” he said in a phone interview last week. “They are shooting someone, stealing a gun. They don’t see the difference between the video game and real life.”
On the other side of these cases, juvenile defense attorney Jenna Zawislak said it’s not that simple and she’s concerned about how police are sharing this information.
“These are areas where we know there are communities with more people of color,” Zawislak said in a phone interview. “(I’m) really keeping an eye on where this goes, we don’t really want to create more fear and outrage directed at certain groups of people.”
But Zawislak said she’s noticed her clients are younger than she’s worked with before, between 16 and 19, as Martin said. And some clients have been back to court five or six times. But she remembers the “superpredator” scare in the 1990s, which spurred unfounded fear of teenagers and violent crime, and she doesn’t want to see that again.
“Now that we’re getting to the level of press conferences about this, where does the narrative go with this?” she said.
THE PANDEMIC A FACTOR
Juvenile defense attorney Amber Miller said the teens involved in these crimes may have been part of the at-risk youth who struggled without school as a support system during the pandemic. Some, she said, did not return to class.
“We just don’t have the services we need,” Miller said in a phone interview. “We are really failing to provide what these children need. If this continues for years and years, of course these kids are going to have a hard time.”
Miller also works in education law and sees a lot of crossover among her clients. While representing a young client involved in a violent crime, Miller wonders what might be missing from his life. She said advocating for young people needs to be an individualized process based on their experiences.
Martin and advocates agree there is a widespread mental health crisis among young people.
Martin said the Long Creek Youth Development Center, which holds a small number of defendants as Maine’s only juvenile prison, is not the appropriate place to rehabilitate teenagers because it is understaffed and understaffed with sufficient mental health services.
He said community policing efforts, like blocking parties with local housing authorities, help officers connect with kids. But now that there are no school resource officers in the city, he said it’s harder to connect with teens. He said as the department increases its staffing, he wants to replenish the youth services officer position, which is responsible for efforts such as youth sports leagues and recreation programs.
Zawislak said that as a defense attorney, she doesn’t think Long Creek solves anything, especially while young brains are still developing.
“What is the best way to handle a situation like this, where we address things that have happened that are potentially violent and concerning to the community, while also balancing the safety and future well-being of the child involved and not traumatizing them? even more so with incarceration?” Zawislak said.
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