There’s no easy solution to teen crime in Charlotte, leaders say

CHARLOTTE — Charlotte’s troubled teens need solutions.

Youth crime is skyrocketing across our community, and on Monday, Charlotte city leaders tried to come up with ways to stop the violence.

By Channel 9′s count, just this year, six shootings have involved teenagers under 18. Of those cases, three have died.

Community Crisis: Kids and Crime

The most recent of those was last week, when 17-year-old Melakah Corbette was gunned down in west Charlotte. He was a student at Julius Chambers High School.

Shootings involving teens are one reason some council members on the Housing, Safety and Community Committee met Monday. They were tasked with coming up with new strategies or policies to try to reduce juvenile crime.

But leaders were not able to make any policy recommendations Monday. They understand how big of a problem teen crime is and realized it would take time.

Last year, more than 3,000 juveniles were arrested for crimes. That includes violent crimes like homicides, robberies, assaults. Of those arrests, 1,700 involved repeat juvenile offenders. That’s 700 more repeat juvenile offenders than in 2022.

Committee members said they still want to tackle this problem from a public health perspective -- by pumping money into more mental health resources for children. Another solution is the Alternatives to Violence programs. They task boots-on-the-ground workers with preventing violence in different corridors across the city. That expanded over the past year after seeing initial success.

Monday was just the start for new ideas to solve this problem.

“There needs to be an urgency behind it,” said councilmember Dimple Ajmera. “We don’t need to study this issue for months and months. We already know that juvenile crime is an issue.”

Council seems poised to call on state legislators to help, saying our juvenile justice system needs better funding.

The timeline for any action would usually be about 90 days, so it could be a while before any new ideas are even brought to council for a vote.

(WATCH BELOW: Youth gun violence: Why is it happening and how can it be stopped?)