The Fight To End Youth Crime In Prince George’s County
Senator Ron Watson Speaks At The Greater Prince George's Business Roundtable Of The New Laws to Help Address Youth Crime
By Kristina Townsend // PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAOUL DENNIS
There are times when young people grow careless or don’t believe they can suffer consequences. When that happens, they often turn to crime, and there has been a staggering rise in it, something that Senator Ron Watson is eager to tackle. Watson stepped up to speak at the November meeting of the Greater Prince George's Business Roundtable, proposing new approaches to youth crime in the county.
“These kids have no fear,” he said. “The challenge is that very few elected officials will stand up and want to have these hard conversations because we have to point the finger inward in our own communities. That makes some people very, very uncomfortable. If we don't do that, we won't get anything done.”
Watson speaks of bills he’s proposed revolving around solving problems such as retail theft, violence and carjacking. Watson acknowledges that some of these bills may not pass, but whether or not they do, they’ll at least garner much-needed attention by being introduced.
“I just want to give you a highlight of some bills that I've been working on,” Watson said. “Some of them may pass, some of them will not pass, but they all will bring light to the issues that we know exist, that we have to get our arms around.”
“I have a bill that basically says, ‘If you're a part parcel of organized theft,’ and we've all seen it on TV, the smash and grabs, the aggregate amount of everything stolen, over and above $1,500, everybody gets charged with felony theft, and any cost that the proprietor has to pay to repair, replace, or restock is also going to be added to that,” he continued. “I'm going to need your help. I talked to the retailers. They like this bill, but they want me to add something to it. They want the ability to go across jurisdictional lines. Folks, these folks will go hit a Home Depot on Prince George Street, go hit a Home Depot in Anne Arundel, it's all caught on video, but they don't have the ability to aggregate all of that together to bring charges. That's something we have to work on.”
When Watson introduced a bill that would help address carjacking, he noted how some may not like it. However, he brought up how this bill can help not only women in particular but the disabled as well.
“I have a bill that some folks aren't going to like. It's called Protection at the Public. It's aimed to take a different approach to carjacking. We know carjackings take place when a person is entering and exiting a vehicle. Oregon just passed a law. This law basically says from the hours of 6:00 AM to midnight, gas stations will have an attendant so that a person does not have to get out of the car if they don't want to. Not only does it support women, who are very often the targets of these, but also our disabled and our vulnerable population. I talked to the retailers. They're not quite on board with that because that requires them to hire somebody.”
But while Watson expressed concern for theft and carjacking, his mind was also on gun violence. He discussed the growing numbers of kids who don’t feel safe, thus they do outlandish things such as bringing guns to school. He also talked about the importance of students’ mental health as well, and how it plays into what they may do when they feel threatened and alone.
“We heard about the student, and we know about the student who was murdered at DuVal High School,” Watson said. “My superintendent was very proactive about metal detectors in DuVal High School. I'm sitting at a community crime forum at First Baptist Highland Park, and teachers from, I think it was Flowers, came to me and said, ‘We don't feel protected either.’ I have a bill with a $100,000 appropriation to help you frame the cost to ensure that we have metal detectors in each and every school.”
“You got to remember the flip side of it. Why do some of these kids have guns? Because these are rough neighborhoods, they don't feel safe. Some of these kids are coming to school with their guns, hiding them in the bush, going to school, and then retrieving them when they leave. These are reports that I get from our police. We have to make a concerted effort and say to ourselves, "Just because somebody hasn't used a firearm in a commission of a crime, or some kind of act of violence, the fact that they have it, and they're a prohibited person is a crime. We have to do something to get these guns off the streets.”
“I think mental health should be built into the curriculum, just like home make was. We have to get our kids to deal with this every day. Some days you feel good about yourself, some days you don't. Some days you're upset, some days you want to hurt somebody, some days you're happy. We have to teach our kids how to deal with the vicissitudes of life and have it on a day-to-day basis.”
