The City of Columbia is resuming work with its Youth Advisory Council as youth violence continues to be a problem and a focus for community organizations.
The Youth Advisory Council is an authorized commission from the city that advises on youth and youth-related issues. During their monthly meeting, they discussed youth violence with the Office of Violence Prevention.
Grace Harris is the chair of the Youth Advisory Council. She said that although the council’s focus is safety and security, this is the first time the group has discussed violence.
“All the public high schools, we have weapons detection systems,” Harris said. “And so that's become just like a part of our daily routine, going to school, holding your laptop up over your head so it doesn't set off the metal detector. So I think it's always like a prevalent thought in our minds.”
D'Markus Thomas-Brown is the city’s Violence Prevention Administrator. He spoke last week at the council’s monthly meeting.
“We need their voices," Thomas-Brown said. "And so, with the youth as it is concerned, we definitely need them to not just be there to validate our narrative, but to be there to actually lend their voice and in some cases lead the charge to what we're doing and what we're seeing.”
He described the upward trends in firearm access and armed criminal action among youth in Columbia between ages 14 to 19 as “alarming.”
