This guide offers research-backed framing strategies for countering a manufactured controversy about what is being referred to as a “crime emergency”—supposedly caused by adolescents—in Washington, DC. It offers guidance for advocates, scientists, organizers, and anyone who works with or cares about the positive development of young people.

We all have a responsibility to respond in this moment.

Regardless of where you live or work, the policies being proposed in Washington and the actions taken by the federal government are of critical concern for young people across the country. Attempts to criminalize young people—particularly Black and immigrant youth—are ongoing, and are playing on people’s most toxic mindsets about adolescence. From Maryland to Tennessee to Louisiana, recent policies place young people in the adult criminal legal system at younger ages than before. People working to create humane and developmentally-responsive systems need to use a unifying framing strategy to combat harmful rhetoric and push back against these damaging policies. 

We encourage such spokespersons to select audiences strategically. The individuals stoking the moral panic are likely beyond persuasion. Devote your attention to the uninvolved, silent majority who may not yet know what they think or how they can help.

Framing Recommendations

1. Respond as someone who’s on the side of kids. Regardless of your role—parent, advocate, researcher, policymaker—actively express care and concern for adolescents’ wellbeing. Talk about how, in your role, your top priority is working in the best interest of children, adolescents, and the adults in their lives. Use phrases like “our children” and “the incredible young people in our community,” and use “we” language instead of “them” as often as possible. This applies whether or not you’re in the Washington, DC area—we are all collectively responsible for what happens to young people in our country. These are “our children” and “our young people” no matter where we live. By authentically positioning yourself as someone who’s speaking up for young people, you can better reach audiences who haven’t yet tuned in to this issue, have turned away because they assume it’s partisan bickering, or who have only heard a story about law and order.
2. Make the story about adolescence as a unique and vital developmental stage. Don’t let their manufactured controversy take up your airtime. Pivot away from debating the need for harsher punishments or increased police presence in our cities. Instead, talk about adolescence as a unique period of opportunity and growth, and remind audiences that young people are active, valuable community members now and into the future. Emphasize adolescents’ need for supportive relationships and connections to their communities as the best way to ensure young people and communities thrive. Explain that when young people experience connection and belonging in their communities, it helps create stability in their lives and stabilizes communities in turn. Give specific, successful examples of programs and policies that support young people’s development so people see the alternatives that create positive outcomes.

3. Explain how proposed actions are directly at odds with what is required for positive development during this stage of life. Help people understand that changing the legal definition of “youth” to charge and incarcerate 14-year-olds will cause developmental harm. Explain how experiences at this stage are critical in shaping a young person’s identity and relational skills. Give examples of how early interactions with the criminal legal system hinder these developmental processes, with potentially lifelong effects. If you have time and space, connect these harms to the recent elimination of essential supports for young people and the adults in their lives, like nutrition assistance, affordable health care, federal housing assistance, and the 988 hotline for suicide prevention.
4. Highlight the particular and immediate harms that are likely to be felt by young people in Black and immigrant communities, then connect to the shared needs of adolescents. Say clearly that recent rhetoric, actions, and proposals harm local Black and immigrant young people, and make sure you show how this happens. Explain that an increased presence of armed, uniformed officers creates fear and stress in communities already facing harsh policing—and that in the District, more than half of young people are from Black or immigrant families. Talk about how racist scapegoating in public language affects them at a critical moment of identity formation, when they are figuring out who they are and what they want to be in the world. Then, zoom out to how these actions go beyond a single racial or ethnic group: When a city is saturated with more than a dozen different police and military forces and any behavior is potentially criminalized, it broadly affects adolescents by preventing exploration of new activities and places. This framing can link the harm to Black and immigrant adolescents in DC to the shared needs of adolescents across the country, preventing and reducing othering.
5. Warn people against misleading rhetorical strategies—and talk about their effects. We can’t directly control the way others talk about adolescents or crime, but we can help create social norms that insist on respectful, honest public language. When hateful or hyperbolic rhetoric about young people is spreading, clearly characterize deceptive or dangerous language as false and harmful, then help people understand its effects on young people, their communities, and all of us. Name the tactic and “worry aloud” about its potential impact. For example, if a public figure is using emotionally charged content to prompt people into believing and spreading messages without assessing them critically, you might say a version of: “I worry that this is an attempt to play on people’s fears about young people. When we are afraid, we’re less likely to think things through, and more willing to tolerate things that we might otherwise consider unfair, unnecessary, or unacceptable.” Put this tactic into your own words. Call out what is happening calmly and firmly. Point out that language used to describe young people in DC has cascading effects across the country.