By Merilee Dannemann
We remember the killing of a 5-year-old girl in 2023, shot in a drive-by shooting that was motivated by a dispute between the shooter and another teenager. It still breaks our hearts. That is partly because the little girl, Galilea Samaniego, was an innocent child who was victimized by accident. But it also would have also been tragic if the shooter had killed the teenage boy who was his intended target.
Another heartbreaking story – last year a gang of young men, older than teenagers, killed Froyland Villegas, age 11, who was on his way home from a ball game with his family. This was also an accident because they targeted the wrong car. If they had killed the person they were aiming for, would that have been all right? Of course not.
And just last week a gang of boys, reportedly ages 12 to 14 – children!! – attacked and shot a woman, apparently intending robbery, and the woman’s husband shot back.
The very nature of these crimes adds to our frustration as we wonder how these shooters could have been so lacking in basic humanity.
Crime by teenagers is being addressed as part of a larger package in this year’s legislative session. Some of those changes, spearheaded by Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman, will involve tougher penalties for teenagers who commit offenses. Bregman says young would-be criminals commit a first crime and because they are underage they suffer little or no consequences. That has to change, he says. Because the teenage offender gets away with such light consequences, he thinks he can get away with it again. Next thing he knows, he’s committed murder and facing life in prison.
Speaking to New Mexico Press Women a few weeks ago, Assistant District Attorney Victoria Leblanc explained the concept further, saying our state’s Children’s Code is out of date and does not reflect current realities. She told us to expect 36 amendments to the Children’s Code.
Many of those amendments are in House Bill 134, sponsored by Rep. Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis.
The amendments appear to me to be incremental steps rather than radical changes, but it’s no surprise that opposition has surfaced. A statement from the American Civil Liberties Union says, “the legislation would fundamentally alter the way our state approaches children involved in crime.”
Here’s how I see it: the teenage offender is both criminal and victim.
I’m recalling conversations with social service professionals, some who worked in juvenile detention facilities and others who worked with troubled families – and studies I’ve written about over the years concerning children raised in deeply dysfunctional homes.
Typical teenage offenders, they tell us, have usually lived through abusive childhoods. They probably experienced the traumas known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – tragic levels of abuse, neglect, family dysfunction. A 2022 study by the state Health Department said New Mexico children have the highest rates of ACEs in the nation. And there’s a good chance they can’t read.
If New Mexico were functioning ideally, schools and social services agencies would have intervened in every dysfunctional family so that all New Mexico children were raised in happy, literate, well-fed, drug-free families. That’s our dream, and we keep trying, as we should. But we’re not there. We hear daily about how we still haven’t fixed the Children, Youth and Families Department, we’re still short of teachers and social workers and we’re still high in poverty and low in literacy.
A heavier dose of criminal consequences might not make badly behaved youth into ideal citizens, but it just might persuade them to change their behavior and prevent a few homicides and lifetime prison sentences. Until we get our societal house in order, that might be the best available alternative.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.