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\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nMontreal remains a relatively low\u2011crime city, police say. But youth are getting involved in criminal activity at younger ages than before \u2014 sometimes as young as 14 or 15. <\/p>\n
Former Montreal police lieutenant and detective Pietro Poletti says the growing concern is not just peer pressure, but adults actively recruiting teenagers to commit crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cJuvenile crime has always existed. But what is a new trend is that the adults are recruiting these young individuals to fulfill their personal needs of either executing contracts, killing arson, you name it,\u201d said Pietro Pelotti, an ex\u2011lieutenant & detective with Montreal police.<\/p>\n
That shift is now being felt by some families on the ground. An organization working to address youth violence brought its message to Montreal, focusing on prevention and early intervention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started in the states in 2018 in Jackson, Mississippi that was our first one and from there it\u2019s just sprouted so we\u2019re all over now, so we\u2019d like to bring them here to Montreal to start establishing them more here,\u201d said Josiah Israel, an instructor of a Youth Violence Conflict Resolution Seminar.<\/p>\n
Pelotti says criminal networks are increasingly keeping their distance, getting young people to do the work, knowing the consequences for minors are often less severe.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir values and ethics and moral ethics have changed. So they have no scruples and they\u2019ll recruit young individuals to commit the crimes that usually were done by adults before,\u201d said Pelotti.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe younger they are the quicker they are to go to crime and whatnot and they\u2019re not they don\u2019t have a vision they don\u2019t have a platform and people to focus on a guide to say okay who can we follow just doing the right things,\u201d said Josiah Israel.<\/p>\n
Preventing youth crime is now one of the SPVM\u2019s top priorities for 2026. Police say that includes getting closer to communities, while also improving responses to mental\u2011health crises and homelessness.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to have more contact with these young individuals on the streets. Once you\u2019re going on social media to arrest them. There are a step ahead that means they\u2019re already there. We have to prevent it by having a presence, talking to these individuals,\u201d said Pelotti.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\tLocal teenagers sit on the street where one person died after being shot by police on Montreal’s South Shore of Longueuil, Que., on Monday, September 22, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Christinne Muschi <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montreal remains a relatively low\u2011crime city, police say. But youth are getting involved in criminal activity at younger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-618010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-montreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}