ATLANTA — Crime and gun violence among young people in the metro Atlanta area are decreasing, and law enforcement officials say it’s not the boys in blue on patrol but rather city-run youth programs that are shifting the trend for kids.

Recent headlines about shootings in metro Atlanta involving young victims have raised alarm about gun violence in the city, but national data shows youth crime and gun violence are on a downward trajectory.

According to Gun Violence Archives, which tracks fatal shootings nationwide, 250 kids between the ages of zero to 11 were killed in 2024, a 17% decrease from 2023. The number of teens ages 12 to 17 who were killed in 2024 (1,171) decreased by 17% compared to 2023.

A total of 644 kids were injured in shootings in 2023, according to Gun Violence Archives, while injuries decreased by 15% in 2024. In 2024, 3,239 teens were injured in shootings nationwide, a 15% decrease from 2023.

In metro Atlanta, the highest-profile program touted by the city and law enforcement is the city’s At-Promise Program, an Atlanta Police Foundation-funded organization that aims to keep children off the street primarily during the summer months when the security and scheduling of school disappears and provide them with resources to become contributing members of society and avoid crime.

Jalen Williams has been part of the program for only a couple of months, but he said the program has changed his life. He hopes others follow in his footsteps.

“It gives you chances to branch out, and it does a lot of good things for your life,” the 15-year-old said at the At-Promise Center’s first Field Day.

Williams was one of more than 700 kids at the event, held June 27 at the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center for kids all over the city. Kids were able to get drawings made of themselves, eat ice cream, get on inflatable games, try rock climbing, color a giant poster and dance with Atlanta Police officers, including Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum.

Schierbaum called the program “as important” to crime fighting as 10 police officers are. He said Mayor Andre Dickens’ continual support and investment in young people continues to pay off.

“We have statistics that show the drop in crime around our At-Promise Centers, but as we see the drop in youth being involved in crime, being victims of crime, the At-Promise Center is key to that,” Schierbaum said.

The city’s Summer Youth Employment Program has also contributed to a reduction in youth crime, according to city officials. Earlier this year, Interim Atlanta Labor Commissioner Theresa Austin-Gibbons said matching young people with employers through the program was able to engage over 5,000 young Atlanta people.

As a result, she said, youth crime went down 23% in 2024, and crimes among 18- to 24-year-olds decreased by 25%.

In Clayton County, Juvenile Court Chief Judge Salvia V. Fox launched the Clayton County Handgun Intervention Program, or C.H.I.P., in 2024 in an attempt to show young people the dangers of possessing firearms.

Fox said judges were seeing a concerning trend of multiple young people being charged and arrested for gun possession in the county, a trend seen across the country.

“The youth that we have in the program are not serious violent offenders, they’re not gang-related,” Fox said. “Most of them, it’s a first-time possession of a firearm charge, and so what we want to do and what we strive for in the program is giving them that information and addressing the issue so that we won’t see them again.”

According to the Council on Criminal Justice, while there was a general decrease in most forms of juvenile offending from 2016 to 2022, firearm use in juvenile offenses was 21% higher in 2022 than in 2016.

The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics found, among high school students, 1 in 20 males and nearly 1 in 50 females carried a gun at least once in the past 12 months for a reason other than hunting or sport in 2023.

“We live in a country where guns are just an integral part of the fabric of the society, for better or worse,” Richard Mendel, a senior research fellow at The Sentencing Project who has done extensive research on gun possession by juveniles, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Mendel said the issue is that when caught with a gun, in most cases, young people are being put through the judicial system rather than alternative options being used.

“Throwing kids for just being caught carrying a gun, not committing a crime with a gun, but just being caught, throwing them into the deep end of that justice system is really counterproductive and that’s what we’re doing in most places most of the time,” Mendel said.

Mendel said studies surveying kids show most of them carry guns out of fear, even though they are not involved in serious violence or even using the weapons. One of the main reasons young people tell Fox they are carrying guns is for protection, Fox said.

“The protection going to school or just from other people in the community, but that’s usually the major issue,” Fox said. “They know of other people that have guns, and so they say they’re carrying guns for protection. We want our kids to feel safe, and some (of) our kids, they just don’t feel safe.”

Schierbaum encouraged parents to reach out if they need help, saying At-Promise Center resources not being limited to children but also the adults raising those children. Fox said the Clayton County program seeks to ensure parents are also engaged in the program to ensure they receive the same information as the kids.

“It’s very essential because the information that we’re providing to their children, if the parents don’t know, then they won’t be able to enforce it,” she said.

Fox said the kids that go through the court’s program, which is about 15 per session held once in spring and once in the fall, are there as part of their probation on firearm possession charges. She said some don’t understand how serious possessing a gun is and how fast things can happen.

“With these firearms and these criminal charges, it takes away their choices of either they can make it themselves or someone else has to make it for them, and they don’t realize something that could happen in the blink of an eye can change their life forever,” she said.

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