[Philly Confidential] grew tired of blaming the cops for the city’s crime woes. She decided it was time to move beyond the cop beat and submerge herself into the dark abyss that is the First Judicial District. She studied crime statistics and learned that youth gun violence is at a 5-year high. She spoke to prosecutors, along with court officials, to understand the nuances of juvenile justice, yet saw how slack everything seemed. Then she snooped around a few courtrooms and heard that too many teen murderers were assigned to probation officers months, sometimes days, before a slaying. What she took away from the two-month probe made her sick:
– Even though many young thugs do really bad things to really good people, the justice system still tries to rehabilitate them and basically slaps them on the hand for their serious crimes. These thugs never feels sorry for breaking the law and continue to terrorize everyone around them.
– Parents of teen hoodlums don’t take responsibility for their kids so the city has to pick up the slack. But there are too many poorly parented delinquents, and the system can’t afford to supervise them all.
– Wanted teens can roam the streets carefree because the unit in place to track them down is too understaffed to chase after the hundreds of kiddie fugitives. Even if the system found all the wanted youngsters, there is nowhere to house them all. There is only one juvenile detention facility in Philadelphia, and it is too overcrowded to hold all these menacing brats.
PHILLY CONFIDENTIAL: It’s A Girl!