How can Charlotte reduce youth crime? That's the question the Charlotte leaders are wrestling with amid a spike in teenagers getting into fights, stealing cars and using guns to settle social media beefs.
To find out, WFAE took a trip to parking lot behind a Concord strip mall on a recent Saturday morning, where about two dozen kids were locked in a fierce game of dodgeball.
They raced toward each other and hurled rubber balls, ducking, weaving and sometimes catching their opponents' lobs.
It looked like any other after-school program, but with one key difference: all the kids here had recently been in serious trouble. Many were here under orders from a juvenile court.
One 15-year-old girl said she got into a big fight at school a few weeks ago.
"It went way past how it was — like wasn't a regular fight," she said.
WFAE isn't using her or any of the other kid's names, to protect their privacy and because juvenile criminal suspects aren't typically identified in North Carolina. She said when the fight started, she lost control.
"Like I was just really angry, and I should have just calmed down when I had the chance, and I didn't," she said.
Standing next to her was a 14-year-old in jeans and a t-shirt.
He stole a car — a Hyundai — he said, and though he takes responsibility, it wasn't entirely his idea.
"One of my homeboys, he just dragged — I just went with him and he just did it and I was with him," he said.
Other kids here were carrying drugs or fighting in the street. A 16-year-old said police caught him with a gun after he exchanged threatening messages with someone on social media.
"At that time, I was thinking it was either them or me," he said.
Juvenile arrests rose 34% in 2023, driven largely by shootings and auto theft
These are just a few of the juvenile offenses police say have been rising in recent years across the country.
In Charlotte, juvenile arrests jumped 34% last year. Some of the cases have been shocking, like a 19-year-old accused of shooting five people at a New Year's Eve celebration, or a minor accused of stealing 17 vehicles in 12 months. Just this month, a 16-year-old was accused of fatally shooting a 14-year-old in a patch of north Charlotte woods.
"We were seeing a little bit of bad messaging between kids on social media (that) turned into fights, and fights that escalated at school, but we're seeing it a lot more than we were during the pandemic," said Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather.
"When I see that there's a really bad pedestrian collision that's occurred within the county, I know that there's probably a 50% chance that that is going to involve a juvenile, and possibly involve a stolen vehicle," he said.
According to police, more than 100 juveniles in Charlotte were shooting suspects last year — up 33% from the prior year. More than 830 juveniles were arrested for auto theft, an increase of nearly 200%.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Johnny Jennings called it a "juvenile crime wave" in an op-ed for The Charlotte Observer, and attributed the rise to low bail, "Raise the Age" legislation implemented in 2019 that means fewer teens tried as adults, and the closure of Mecklenburg County's only juvenile jail in 2022.
Youth advocates say environmental factors are also playing a role.
Access to guns, social media challenges, economic conditions are all playing a part
"When we hear about youth crime, I think we're quick to blame the youth or the individual. It's a community problem," said Apryl Alexander, an assistant professor at UNC Charlotte who studies youth crime.
She said youth violence in the U.S. is still below peak levels of the 1980s and 1990s, but it has been rising since 2020. That's when the COVID-19 pandemic distanced kids from teachers, coaches, churches and extracurriculars.
"You weren't going to school. You weren't going to after-school activities," said said.
At the same time, the country saw rising rates of domestic violence and substance use. Gun sales also hit a record high.
On YouTube and TikTok, viral videos showed teens how to steal Kias and Hyundais with ease, and post their exploits under the hashtags #KiaBoyz and #KiaChallenge.
Adding to this, Alexander says many lower-income parents had to work more to keep up with the cost of food and housing.
"If a parent has to work two or three jobs right now, they're not in the home, they can't provide the supervision they want to provide," she said.
Adult mentors could be part of the solution, advocates say
Kwasi Amponsa says he understands why troubled teens might be quick to act out or escalate an argument.
"When you don't have much, when you don't know much, when you don't feel valued, anything that counters your self-respect can feel like a huge thing," he said.
Amponsa sees it every day as a program manager for one of Charlotte's Alternatives to Violence programs, run by the national Youth Advocate Program.
"I could step on your shoe right now and not say, 'excuse me,' and it's like, he disrespected me, so I'm gonna call him a name. And it goes from a name calling to a fight, from a fight to a shooting," he said.
Amponsa is trying to change that, in part by what he's doing today — passing out hot dogs and hamburgers at a community cookout on Beatties Ford Road.
Neighbors pick up trays of food and sing along to a DJ as kids run off to get their faces painted.
This is part of Charlotte's strategy to reduce crime. The Alternatives to Violence program throws cookouts to get to know neighbors. Staff walk through neighborhoods intervening in conflicts, and they work closely with neighborhood kids who get in trouble.
"This is really dear to me because I was one of those kids who had a very challenging teenage life," Amponsa said.
He said he was one of those bad kids growing up in the 1990s, and the only thing that worked for him was meeting a mentor in a program just like this one.
"I had someone who looked just like me, an African-American male who was older. He was a college graduate. He emphasized education and the importance of respecting my parents' household, and he also connected me to opportunities — things that I liked," he said.
His mentor took him to comic book stores, spoke to his teachers and made sure he graduated high school on time. It was the kind of advocacy that can change a teenager's direction.
'It's changed me a lot of ways'
Back at the dodgeball game in Concord, Reggie McNeil said this is what the city of Charlotte should focus on — connecting more adult role models to kids and creating positive environments.
"If you let young people get in the space and create the atmosphere and the culture where they can be young people, most times they will be," he said.
His program, called "Transforming Youth Movement," helps kids complete community service, connects them with mentors, teaches them about emotions, and help them pursue jobs and hobbies.
And the kids here saying it's working, like the 15-year-old girl who got in a big fight at school.
"I've been more happy. I've been more calm. I've managed my time well. I've been doing more activities outside of just staying in the house and being on my phone. So it's changed me in a lot of ways, actually," she said.
The 16-year-old boy who was caught with a gun after getting into a social media argument said ever since he started with the program, he hasn't felt the need to carry a weapon anymore.
"The good thing about this program, I can say that it did change your mindset about everything, like how to be calm and let certain stuff go," he said.
All it took for him was some field days, community service outings and adult role models who were willing to have deep talks and listen.
