We thought that we had noticed more Metro Transit Police patrolling at the mouths of Metro stations and up and down platforms in recent weeks, and now we might know part of the reason why: the total count of reported thefts in the system, both violent and not, is way up from last year. According to the Metro crime statistics site, year-to-date robberies and larceny in the entirety of the system are up about 38 percent and 14 percent respectively over 2007 numbers. At the same time, the overall arrest rate for Transit Police has slightly declined.

What’s to blame for the surge? MTP notes that there have been a depressingly large number of robberies by juveniles in the system – half of the arrestees in robbery cases on Metro so far this year have been under the age of 17. The biggest problem stations seem to be those that service large school populations, like Gallery Place-Chinatown, Tenleytown, and Anacostia.

It’s interesting to note that MTP’s standard procedure for handling kids who misbehave in stations and on trains — stuff like loitering, spitting, and rough housing — is to warn the offending youth three times before attempting to contact their parents. Maybe with a bit more front-end prevention, Transit Police could get the message through to kids who ride Metro that they can’t act with impunity on the system. These rising numbers seem to indicate that a more stringent policy should be implemented, at least at the stations where most of the trouble is occurring.

Photo by apium.