The number of crimes committed by juveniles plunged 31 percent in the last five years to the lowest level since Hamilton County began tracking such data, according to an annual report from the Juvenile Court System.
Police, residents and politicians praised the decline, but some were skeptical.
"I think everybody, from time to time, wonders what in the world is going on," Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Beck said.
"You see crime being committed by people already out on bail or who have long records and are out on the streets. Then you come along and say crime is down. It's sort of a disbelief."
The report, submitted to the Tennessee Department of Children's Services each year, shows:
• The total number of crimes declined from 3,989 in 2006 to 2,754 in 2010, led by decreases in less-serious crimes such as vandalism and somewhat in the category of assaults.
• Over the five-year span about 35 percent of the crimes are classified as "serious" - aggravated assault, murder, aggravated robbery, sexual battery and others. That percentage remained more or less the same throughout the period, meaning that as nonviolent offenses decreased, so did violent ones.
• As much as one-third to one-half of juvenile crimes that resulted in an arrest and were reported to the courts happened in five areas - Brainerd, East Brainerd, East Chattanooga, downtown and a collection of neighborhoods that the report refers to as Highland Park.
Hamilton County Juvenile Court spokesman Chris Albright said the numbers in the 2010 report are the lowest since tracking began in 1998.
The decline is in keeping with decreases in total crime and juvenile crime statewide and nationwide in some of the same years, though Hamilton County's improvement was greater.
According to the FBI's crime reports, violent crime in Tennessee dropped by nearly 9 percent from 2006 to 2009 while property crime decreased about 5 percent. For the same period nationwide, violent crime fell by 7 percent and property crime by nearly the same percentage.
The most recent compilation of U.S. juvenile crime statistics from 2008 shows a 16 percent drop in all juvenile crime from 1999 to 2008 and a 9 percent drop in juvenile violent crime for the same period, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Programs.
Some officials and residents attributed the improvement in Hamilton County to more effective police efforts and community crime-fighting initiatives.
Yet others steadfastly maintain that the Hamilton County report undercounts juvenile crime.
"These figures are bodies that have been arrested and brought to Juvenile Court and into the system," said Hugh Reece, who worked in juvenile courts as recently as 2007 and is now community outreach specialist for the Hamilton County Coalition.
"But I would say an equal number have not been apprehended."
Neighborhoods
The report shows the number of criminal incidents among juveniles ages 11 to 18 who enter the courts system. It lists where the incidents occurred and the neighborhoods or towns where defendants live.
The courts use ZIP codes to define neighborhoods. While all closely match the named locations, the ZIP code called Highland Park actually includes portions of Bushtown, Oak Grove, Clifton Hills and Ridgedale.
That area is the No. 1 neighborhood for juvenile crime incidents in each of the last five years and is frequently in the top three for home addresses of defendants, according to the report.
Judith Schorr has lived in the Highland Park area for more than three decades and heads the neighborhood association's safety committee.
She said the decline shows positive results from engaged neighborhoods in her immediate area and in surrounding communities.
Last summer the association started bike patrols; paired stay-at-home moms to walk the neighborhood during the day; began immediate reporting, documentation and cleaning of gang graffiti; and continued the neighborhood e-mail listing, which communicates information about crime in the area.
Despite going from 771 juvenile crime incidents in 2006 to 582 last year, the neighborhood remains in the top spot and accounts for 15 to 20 percent of the county's juvenile crime.
The Highland Park area lies between downtown and East Chattanooga, two of the other worst areas for juvenile crime. Schorr said much of the walk-through traffic means criminals, juvenile or adult, see crimes of opportunity.
Association members remind others to lock their doors, keep valuables out of sight in their cars and leave porch lights on to deter crime.
Schorr said small steps and progress over the last 10 to 20 years help decrease crime, but neighborhoods that already have a crime history have to do extra work to get ahead.
"To go from 129 drug houses down to five in 20 years, that's phenomenal," she said, referring to one of the changes in the neighborhood.
Police work
Chattanooga City Councilman Andraé McGary's district includes parts of Highland Park and downtown. The councilman attributed some of the decline in juvenile crime to more effective police efforts.
Relaying his experience on multiple police ride-alongs last summer, McGary said he saw firsthand how officers must prioritize calls.
A group of teens standing on a corner committing no obvious crime, even if they could be violating curfew, is not as immediate as the burglary-in-progress call coming over the radio.
"I would like to see that officers have some discretion," he said. "But if the kid has a record, they need to be put in handcuffs. That's the bottom line."
Lt. Kirk Eidson heads the Chattanooga Police Department's major crimes unit and formerly led the juvenile crimes division. He said that with overall crime down it makes sense that juvenile crime also would drop.
Though he didn't have specific numbers, he did point to efforts by the department's crime suppression unit.
"Those guys are working every day, and they work hard on all kinds of crime, some gang-related," Eidson said. "Any kind of call with [a] crime in progress, you're going to wind up seeing somebody from crime suppression. That's what their mission is."
The suppression unit formed nearly four years ago with six officers and now is up to 10. Its investigators focus on hot spots, working with patrol units in busier zones to help increase manpower as officers spot crime trends.
Sgt. Todd Royval works with the unit and said most of the offenders who are arrested are adults.
But "if we catch a kid committing a crime, we arrest them," he said.
Don Rodgers, president of the Cherry Street Townhomes Association in the downtown area, said he's seen few criminal incidents in the neighborhood.
"The police seem to be doing a pretty good job of patrolling the area," he said. "I would like to see more police, but I think the city's doing the best they can."
The Law
Reece theorized that having fewer police officers could mean that fewer juveniles are being arrested.
Chattanooga police are 47 officers short of Chief Bobby Dodd's goal of 475 officers, even after the recent graduation of a new police academy.
Dodd, appointed chief in July, has moved investigators and other officers into the patrol staff. He has said his priority is patrol and keeping officers on the streets.
But Reece pointed to the limited options that police have when arresting juveniles.
Juveniles arrested on curfew violations can be taken to the temporary holding cells at the juvenile justice center or cited with their parents to City Court, where the highest penalty is a $50 fine.
"Judge [Suzanne] Bailey and her three referees have their hands full over at Juvenile Court; there's only so much they can do," he said. "There's only so much law enforcement can do."
Bailey could not be reached for comment Friday.
Reece criticized state laws that he said don't allow for stiffer truancy penalties. He thinks they could stop juveniles from committing more serious offenses.
Assistant District Attorney H.C. Bright, the Juvenile Court prosecutor, said there is a mismatch in how the law works and what's being dealt with in the courts.
Outdated state laws for truancy and other noncriminal juvenile offenses are based on the idea that there is a caring, involved family member in every child's home, he said. When that is not the case, it's difficult for the courts to do much.
"The Juvenile Court feels like it's the disciplinarian of last resort," he said.