The tragic death of 14-year-old Christopher Jones of Crofton last month was a wake-up call for Anne Arundel County residents that their tranquil suburban communities are no proof against the threat of violent youth gangs.
After police arrested two teenage suspects described as gang members and charged them with manslaughter in connection with Christopher's death, community leaders implored their friends and family to resist the impulse to even the score.
Those pleas apparently went unheeded, however. Last week, police arrested four members of a rival group and charged them with firebombing a house in retaliation for the killing. Mercifully, no one was injured in that incident.
But the terrible act of vengeance in Crofton showed that gangs and youth violence are problems that extend well beyond the city limits of Baltimore and other large urban centers. It's evidence of a national dilemma that has left even the country's leafy suburbs no longer feeling like the completely safe havens they once were.
Local police and prosecutors can expect to see more cases like Crofton's, even though juvenile crime rates overall have declined slightly after peaking in the mid-1990s. As a result, suburban jurisdictions may soon find themselves following in the footsteps of cities like Baltimore and Washington, which are struggling to devise more innovative and effective strategies to address the problem.
No single approach is likely to succeed by itself. But violence prevention initiatives that identify youngsters who are at high risk of becoming perpetrators or victims of crimes, and then follow up by giving them extra supervision in the form of home visits from police and social workers, have shown some promise as preventive measures (though in Baltimore so far the overall results have been mixed).
Likewise, mediation and conflict resolution projects may succeed in reducing the most aggressive behaviors of younger gang members whose violent propensities haven't yet hardened into serious criminal misconduct. And curfew ordinances for youngsters under 17 can help keep them out of mischief after dark and on weekends.
Suburban communities ultimately may need to adopt a range of approaches to make a dent in the problem. But it is one they can't afford to ignore. The sooner they take action, the better prepared they will be because, as Crofton residents recently learned to their great sorrow, juvenile gang violence is no longer only a big-city problem.
