Webinar Examines Sexual Exploitation of Girls by Gangs

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CHICAGO-- Although gangs are a chronic problem in many urban and suburban areas of the nation, this city included, certain aspects of gang life don’t receive the attention – and therefore the resources – necessary to combat them. In particular, the sexual exploitation of girls by gangs is a serious problem currently facing law enforcement, courts, educators and social service programs across the country, according to a panel that met this week to discuss the issue. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention presented a webinar Wednesday through the Missing and Exploited Children’s Program to address promising practices for targeting the commercial sexual exploitation of girls in gangs. The webinar built on MECP’s June presentation about exploitation by offering organizations and individuals suggestions for internal practices and appropriate interaction with victims.

“The top thing that sexually abused, victimized girls say they want in treatment and in custody is someone to talk to,” said speaker Keith Burt, a retired deputy district attorney and former Chief of the Gang Prosecution Division in San Diego. “Someone they feel they can trust, that they can just talk to.”

Although the speakers acknowledged males and transgender individuals suffer from sexual exploitation by gangs, the victims are overwhelmingly female.

Report Finds States Pulling Back from Tough Laws of ’80s, ’90s (Watch the Video)

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By Natalie Krebs and Eric Ferkenhoff

CHICAGO-Fears that a generation of menacing adolescents would stalk cities and kill at will never came to pass, and it appears states have gotten the message. Legislators are now relaxing harsh laws against minors enacted in the late 1980s and 1990s, according to a report out Tuesday. The study found children lack the mental capacity to commit crimes as adults. States have also raised the age at which juveniles may transfer to adult courts, and they now recognize most minors involved in crimes have some type of mental illness. But the racial disparities plaguing the juvenile justice system were among the most telling findings, with statistics heavily skewed against blacks and Hispanics.

Chicago’s Homicides Down in July But Worries Still Linger

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By Natalie Krebs and Lorraine Ma

CHICAGO -- It was rare news in a summer filled with frightening crime statistics, equally alarming headlines and a mayor and police superintendent on the defensive: For the month of July, killings in this city were down 11 percent from the same period last year, with the number of homicides for the month at 49. But such news matters little to people like Shirley Askew, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side, whiling away days playing in the streets and city parks. And it means little when the overall homicide rate for the year is still up nearly 27 percent. Many children are scared; they’re kept indoors, and, in a very real sense, locked out of their childhoods. Now 59, with four sons and four grandsons, Askew indeed worries about the increasing neighborhood violence that threatens local children’s safety. Just Thursday afternoon, not far from where Askew spoke with reporters, two 16-year-old boys were gunned down and another wounded.