Dear reader,
We’ve covered some violence-related statistics before, such as the homicide rate, which is still on track to be at or near all-time lows in many cities nationwide. But this week, our colleagues at Chalkbeat Philadelphia, a news site that covers education in that city, brought our attention to a statistic that reveals where progress can be made in the effort to prevent violence: the share of shootings of children under 18.
In the weeks to come, we’re going to bring you a series of indicators that you helped us develop, about ways to measure the opposite of violence. Today, the reporter Sammy Caiola explores why Philly has found it more challenging to minimize the proportion of shootings that involve youths.
— Matthew Thompson
Who is getting shot?
The total number of both deadly and nondeadly shootings in Philadelphia has been shrinking each year since 2022, as in major cities nationwide. This means fewer children are being shot; 128 were injured or killed by bullets in 2025, a significant decline from the 227 people under 18 who were shot in 2020.
But there’s one troubling data point in this overall positive pattern: The share of nonfatal shooting victims who are children has been growing. In 2020, just 8 percent of shooting survivors were under 18, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of data from the City of Philadelphia. In 2025, it was 11 percent.
The shooting data includes homicides, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults and other cases that resulted in a hospital visit. “The data is starting to tell a story that we should really be keeping our eye on,” said Sara Solomon, the deputy director of the Injury Science Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Firearms became the leading cause of death for children in 2020. Many experts blamed the spike in gun purchases during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nationally, the share of shooting victims who were children grew to 12 percent in 2024, the most recent year for which the Gun Violence Archive has data, from 9 percent in 2020.
Solomon’s team recently launched a violence prevention program in middle schools in response to community concerns about gun violence impacting younger children. It includes prevention services such as connections to counseling. Her team also runs engagement events where they speak to parents about firearm safety.
“People still see guns as safe in certain communities,” Solomon said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if kids had access to guns, if they’re available in the homes.”
Why are children so at risk?
Local researchers and neighborhood leaders say interventions that helped slow adult shootings haven’t been as effective on the city’s youth.
“You have three things coming together: humans being at a young age, technology, and culture,” said Jonathan Wilson, a Philadelphia nonprofit director and gunshot survivor. Smartphones that young people carry at all times provide them new ways to antagonize each other and at all hours. “Today with TikTok, Instagram, I can go talk to you right there, and I can go live and say, ‘Where you at? I’m coming right now. Drop your location.’ We couldn’t drop a location when I was young.”
The number of juveniles charged in nonfatal shootings has been climbing, according to an analysis by The Trace, which covers gun violence, of data from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office. Teens have fired at one another after verbal altercations and during football scrimmages.
Young people and adults who work with them say the desire to attain status, or to build an identity or a sense of self-worth that is sometimes lacking because of the absence of caring adults, continues to draw teens toward violence even as many adults step back.
Chronic exposure to trauma can also make it harder for these children to regulate their emotions, according to multiple studies. Whether a child has access to mental health services, quality education, stable housing and even healthy food can be factors.
“You can trace it back to probably when someone is inside their mother’s stomach, and the environmental and social conditions leading up to having higher risk for a shooting,” Solomon said. “All of these things, layer upon layer, whether it’s trauma, cultural norms, access and availability, are happening before the actual event.”
What is being done to stop it?
Across the country, hundreds of violence prevention programs aim to keep children safe from gunfire and prevent them from shooting others. A lot of this work starts with identifying risk factors.
Multiple studies show that employing young people significantly reduces the likelihood that they will become involved in gun violence.
After a young person has been shot once, their likelihood of being shot again increases, so many health care systems have implemented violence prevention strategies in hospitals. Physicians have created protocols for talking with parents about safe storage of guns in hopes of reducing the number of children shot by accident.
Interactions with the criminal legal system also increase a child’s risk of being shot later in life, so Philadelphia and other cities have leaned into diversion programs that assign young people to rehabilitative programs instead of jails.
And some school districts are hiring trauma specialists and creating de-escalation rooms where young people can learn how to cope with stressors in their homes and neighborhoods.
But there’s no one size fits all solution, experts and advocates say. And recent cuts to federal gun violence prevention funding are fueling fears of more shootings.
“Right now, the lion’s share of the programs are going for young adults 18 to 24, but the people that are doing this stuff are 14 and 15 and 16,” Wilson said. “As far as solutions, it’s got to be a multipronged approach. You’ve got to chip away at each thing.”
What can I check out next?
-
Philly’s teens are making a new kind of rap music at community centers, in basement recording studios and at evening hangouts as a way to process the gun violence around them and urge their friends to stay out of it.
-
“A World of Hurt,” from The Trace, follows a Dallas family whose 14-year-old son was fatally shot during an altercation with another child just a few days before their 6-year-old daughter was killed by a firearm in their home.
-
While the overall adolescent suicide rate is declining, there has been a significant rise in firearm suicides among Black youths. This Pew Research brief talks about why.
-
Headway provided a close look at how dwindling federal funds have affected violence prevention initiatives.
— Sammy Caiola
Your turn
Test your knowledge: Across Europe and North America, the number of terrorism-related investigations involving children has risen threefold since 2021, according to a United Nations committee that analyzes global trends related to terrorism. What percentage of investigations now include youth under 18?
Tell us your thoughts: What have you noticed about violence involving youth in your neighborhood? Please email your thoughts to [email protected].
Following up: Back in February, Anna Diamond noted a delay in the annual federal count of Americans who were experiencing homelessness. In late May, our colleague Jason DeParle reported, the wait was finally over. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, homelessness fell by 3 percent in the last year of the Biden administration, after a nearly decade-long rise.
As Jason noted, the rate in January 2025 was still high compared to past levels. But the decline was in line with an analysis Jason conducted this past January of data from local and regional sources. The 2025 numbers followed a marked rise in homelessness in recent years that many experts believe was largely an effect of the surge of migrants to the U.S. that year. The new data comes as the Trump administration works to orchestrate a significant shift in federal policies addressing homelessness.
A correction: Last week’s edition of this newsletter misidentified where Phase 1 of the Second Avenue line in New York City begins. It begins at 63rd Street, not 72nd Street.
Sammy Caiola contributed reporting.
The Headway initiative is funded through grants from the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors serving as a fiscal sponsor. The Woodcock Foundation is a funder of Headway’s public square. Funders have no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of the Headway initiative.
The post The Violence Decline Isn’t Evenly Distributed appeared first on New York Times.
