it's more than just rowdiness on the boardwalks some lawmakers say a rise in juvenile crime needs immediate attention citing youth involvement in illegal activities like carjackings thefts and even burglaries well this week a senate committee met to work on new solutions for improving Public Safety in the state and whether the traditional criminal justice system is the best option Ted Goldberg reports over the last few weeks Governor Phil Murphy and summoned law enforcement have painted very different pictures of how the Summer started the shore did not have a chaotic weekend there were three very serious incidents but this was overwhelmingly a huge Memorial Day the law has simply tied our hands all chaos ensues the public deserves to not wait until after things have gotten out of control for the police to be able to make arrests a few viral recordings of Chaos in short towns have renewed debates about how police should deal with disorderly juveniles and young adults in an age with cell phone recordings and body worn cameras which while we welcome accountability and we believe it is important many officers fear losing their job because of mishandling an encounter with a youth yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing on how to best handle crimes committed by minors a meeting that veered into familiar arguments about 2017's bail reform in which the state switched from a largely money-based bail system to a risk-based assessment nobody wants to leave a young person who commits a minor offense with a permanent record but if they're going to continue to do things and engage in behaviors such as home invasions if there is no deterrent there is no consequence there will be no change in Behavior kids are just more vulnerable to pressure and to impulses than adults are we talk about things like enhancing penalties or letting kids know that they'll be waved or letting kids know this or that we act as those kids are thinking about any of that when they go out of the house when they leave and they aren't New Jersey's bail reform has led to fewer people being incarcerated but some say that it's handcuffed law enforcement without the threat of detention we can't effectively build a case against the ring leaders who are adults that pay these juveniles for each car that they steal in multiple incidents our officers have arrested a juvenile that committed a home invasion for them to just say I'll see you tomor tomorrow boss when an officer deals with a disorderly youth we do not have a system in place that would indicate previous law enforcement interactions Station House adjustments curbside warnings or even charges that have been dismissed as a result of successful diversion supporting diversionary programs for certain offenders might be the only thing everyone could agree on we need to have more programs from juveniles after they've been adjudicated so that we can ensure that they don't become adult recidivist children who enter into a diversionary program are 45% likely to not reoffend um diversion can be more powerful than probation for low-level offenders others pointed out that you can reduce crime simply by sharing information like in the case of the Kia challenge a Tik Tok Trend where people learned how to easily steal certain Kia and Hyundai Rutgers Professor Alejandro gimenez Santana said an informational campaign paid big dividends in nework as soon as this uh program uh started we found a uh decrease in the number of successful Auto thefts and an increase in the number of uh failed Auto thefts meaning that people were breaking into cars but no longer were able to steal the cars because now people had upgraded their cars some bills on the table would increase penalties for miners stealing cars and committing home invasions and make them less likely to make bail in Trenton I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music]