More and more teen killers blame NYs Raise the Age law for cultivating crime

Police just arrested yet another teen homicide suspect, the latest grim reminder that Albany’s disastrous Raise the Age law is creating more young criminals.On Wednesday, cops nabbed a 17-year-old in connection with the killing of Javits Frimpong, the Bronx 15-year-old gunned down walking to school late last month.A Bronx judge recently set a $25,000 cash bail for Kalvin Veloz, 16, charged in the fatal shooting of Riley Billingslea, 15, this summer.Juvenile gun arrests have jumped 19% this year, and violent teen crime is far above its level before Raise the Age kicked in seven years ago.The law sought to protect 16- and 17-year-olds by making it near-impossible to try them in adult Criminal Court, but sending them to Family Court instead has meant little or no punishment even for violent crimes.So kids who might learn a lesson after a low-level mistake don’t — and are more likely to make worse ones, all too often until someone ends up dead.Plus, gangs recruit teens as relatively safe gun carriers who’ll walk even if caught.Meanwhile, the juvenile-justice system is overwhelmed by having to handle so many more hard cases.As Naomi Schaefer Riley noted in Monday’s Post, violent 16- and 17-year-old lawbreakers are now dumped into two Administration for Children’s Services youth facilities (Crossroads in Brooklyn and Horizons in The Bronx), right alongside kids as young as 12.  Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Never miss a story.Both have grown horribly overcrowded; Horizons, holding 187 kids but just 125 beds, saw a full-on riot in June.Now City Hall’s chosen to ease the crowding with mass releases, sending scores of dangerous juvenile offenders right back onto city streets under a dubious “intensive community monitoring program.”State lawmakers whose districts are beset by youth gun c...