Middle school-aged kids increasingly face felony charges in King County

As juvenile crime rates in King County rise, one of the largest increases has been among younger kids booked into detention, usually as felony suspects.

“It certainly feels like we’re seeing kids come into the system at a younger age, and more often, and, most concerningly, on more serious crimes,” said Jimmy Hung, who leads the juvenile division of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

County data shows that 13-year-olds were booked into juvenile detention 66 times in the year ending July 31, compared to 30 times the previous year. That is by far the highest jump in booking rates of any age in juvenile detention, and nearly four times the increase in bookings for 17-year-olds.

Last month, one-quarter of the 112 youths in juvenile detention or on electronic home monitoring in King County on an average day were 14 or younger. More than half were charged with robbery, court records show; others face assault, rape or gun charges.

Police and security guards on public transportation increasingly encounter roving bands of kids attacking passengers and people around stations, Hung said.

“We recently met with the folks who patrol Sound Transit and King County Metro, and they were expressing some serious concerns around this rise in younger kids just sort of riding the transit system from place to place, assaulting homeless people and drug addicts and people who are fairly vulnerable,” Hung said.

This week, a boy was charged with attacking first a passerby at a Kent light rail station, then the Sound Transit security guard who intervened. The guard recognized the 11-year-old, who goes by the street name “Little Trouble,” the guard told police.

It was the boy's fourth time being charged with violent felonies this year - crimes serious enough to potentially override the state minimum age for prosecution of 12 years old, if the court deems him mature enough to stand trial.

When the boy briefly spoke at a recent court hearing, the high pitch of his young voice seemed to take even the judge aback.

Police in Tukwila and Renton also report a startling increase in younger kids involved in serious crime in the past year.

"How unfortunate it is when you see 12, 13-year-olds involved in violent crimes where obviously they should be in school, playing video games, hanging out with their friends, and they're out committing crimes involving guns, robbing people, carjacking people," said Jon Schuldt, Renton chief of police.

"It's just incredibly crazy that at that age they're committing that violent of a crime," Schuldt said.

Prosecutors say juvenile crime has been fueled in part by easily-stolen cars and the growing number of guns on the streets. Hung says a common thread is a lack of school engagement. “Almost all the kids who are engaged in violent behavior, they're not going to school. They're either disengaged or they were suspended or expelled,” Hung said.

School closures during the height of the pandemic hit students of color, kids from low-income families, and those with learning or developmental disabilities hardest, studies show, in both academic and social/emotional development.

Statistics from local school districts on the state education department website show that kids ages 12 to 14 are attending less school and at higher risk of not graduating high school on time.

In Kent School District, half of all low-income ninth graders failed at least one class in the 2022-23 school year, a key predictor of school dropout. The year before the pandemic, one-third had failed a ninth-grade class.

Chronic school absenteeism, defined as missing two or more days of school a month, is also up sharply since the pandemic. In the Auburn School District, 44% of 7th- and 8th-graders were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year, compared to 18% the year before the pandemic.

The fentanyl epidemic is also taking a toll on school-aged kids, said King County Superior Court Chief Juvenile Judge Veronica Galván. “We are seeing an explosion of substance use disorders. I have children as young as 12 who are addicted to fentanyl,” Galván said.

There are few drug treatment beds available for kids, Galván said. Juvenile judges also report finding scarce options for young people who need inpatient mental health treatment despite the growing need in recent years.

“Everybody wants to point fingers, but this is a community issue,” said Judge Galván. “They say the health of a society can be determined by how they treat their elderly and how they treat their children. And right now, what I'm seeing is that we're not very healthy, in terms of how we are helping our children to learn and to cope.”

Schuldt, who had been critical of the growing reliance on diversion and electronic home monitoring in the county's juvenile justice system, said the prosecutor's office has been working collaboratively with his department in recent months and more vigorously prosecuting juvenile crime after Renton started seeing violent crimes committed by juveniles "almost on a weekly basis” earlier this year, Schuldt said.

"Like any good relationship, it's communication, and working more closely with [prosecutors] to understand the severity of the issues as they pertain to our community," Schuldt said.

Juvenile judges, too, seem to be taking the problem more seriously, Schuldt said, and releasing fewer young people charged with felonies.

"We're actually seeing them put into juvy, where there's more of an opportunity not only for the accountability, but for them to get the assistance for their families, even more importantly, to help out with any issues that may be revolving around them committing crimes, and hopefully resolving some of those issues," Schuldt said.

The number of juveniles in both detention and released with ankle monitors has grown dramatically in recent years, and surpassed pre-Covid levels. The daily average population of juvenile detention has been 52 so far this year, compared to 34 per day in 2019. Nearly everyone in juvenile detention faces felony charges

The increase in youth crime has complicated longstanding efforts by King County Executive Dow Constantine to close the juvenile detention facility, which he has said does not prevent crime and exacerbates racial disparities. A county task force continues its work to develop an alternative to secure youth detention with a goal to begin implementation in 2028.

County leaders, however, have become more outwardly skeptical about how realistic it would be to close the four-year-old detention center. The King County Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a motion that would formalize the council's position on keeping the county's juvenile detention facility open long-term.