there have been several disturbing and violent crimes recently linked to teens earlier this month a 13-year-old in Toronto pled guilty to second degree murder he was 12 at the time of the crime ctv's Christina Talia tonight takes a look at the data on youth violence and explores what experts say could be part of the problem a 16-year-old boy face charges in Toronto this weekend for injuring and killing several local animals it's a younger person and I think if that's the case that they need help last week Toronto police charged two teen boys with first-degree murder
after a recent crime spree in the tow truck industry us are being targeted to commit the actual uh acts that other people want done out on the streets the week before that a 13-year-old Toronto boy became the youngest person in the city's history to be convicted of murder and still before the courts the case of a group of eight teenage girls charged in the 2022 swarming death of a man who lived on Toronto streets it's a disturbing Trend but one we won't have a full picture of for some time data lags behind at least a
year the most recent stats show that Canada's youth violent crime rate was up slightly in 2023 the year before stats candidate reports 90 people aged 18 and under were accused of homicide and almost 50 year high and schools are reporting an optican um bullying and violence this expert in youth mental health says where she's seeing a problem with violence is in the classroom so when that damn breaks you see it overflow into the community the causes are complex but the data points to kids being influenced by behaviors they witness a contagion effect think of a
behavior spreading from person to person like a virus bad behaviors by adults other kids or online we can't go into homes and fix homes but we can certainly um manage kids when in schools the young people in the city are not all right outside of the classroom the head of Toronto City council's youth advisory body says the best antidote for crime is a good job in order to get us out of the situation we seen a key to that is youth employment at a recent Summit his group pushed the city to create 10,000 more youth
summer jobs in 2025 the youth unemployment rate is a big concern for decision makers it jumped to 13.5% in June a level not seen in a decade excluding the pandemic Christina telia CTV News Toronto