ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Overall crime is trending down, juvenile crime is trending up.

That is the claim fueling Second Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman’s push to rewrite the laws governing New Mexico’s juvenile justice system. 

“At the end of the day, it’s to have consequences for young people so that we’re not sentencing them for murder. I want them to know that the first time they get in trouble, there’s some consequences,” Bregman said to a room full of state lawmakers during the Courts, Corrections and Justice committee meeting.

After Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Bregman in 2023, he started tracking juvenile crime, focused on guns. 

According to Bregman’s office, juvenile gun crime increased 57% from 2022 to 2023.

However, in the first ten months of 2024, there was a 37.5% decrease in juvenile felony gun crimes compared to the same time in 2023. 

“2022 was still at the tail end of the pandemic… I think we had a lot of kids that weren’t even in school at the time,” Bregman said. “I can’t attribute it [the decrease] to a single thing, but I know it’s still far too much going on.” 

During the latest decrease in juvenile gun violence, Bregman started an education campaign, taking that campaign to students in schools across Albuquerque. 

At the same time, the governor issued a Public Health Order on gun violence. The order directed juveniles accused of crimes with guns to be automatically detained.

A spokeswoman for the Children Youth and Families Department said that order led to around 10% more juvenile detentions statewide.  

Bregman’s courtroom counterpart, New Mexico Chief Public Defender Bennet Baur, wants the same thing as him. Baur wants to divert young people away from committing serious crimes later.

However, he has a dramatically different perspective on how to achieve that goal. 

“We have to let them know the dangers. I think that’s very important. But it’s not necessarily through incarceration,” Baur said. 

Juvenile crime stats, provided by the Law Office of the Public Defender, show most juvenile crime is decreasing. Armed robbery, criminal sexual penetration, shooting at or from a motor vehicle, or at a dwelling, and aggravated battery have all trended down recently. 

However, the stats also show juvenile murder has trended up since 2019. In that same time, juvenile auto theft has also increased dramatically.

“My concern is that we make decisions based upon numbers that only look at what happened during COVID,” Baur said. “As those numbers go down, and as crime goes down naturally, that’s going to leave a lot of kids in detention and a lot of people in prison.” 

4 Investigates asked Bregman:

RYAN LAUGHLIN: “Are you concerned that we’re taking a too narrow of a snapshot of time and extrapolating an issue that is returning back to a norm?” 

SAM BREGMAN: “No. Not at all. I will tell you because it’s not just the juveniles we’re talking about here. If you look at the 18–25-year-old population, gun crimes continue to soar. There’s just too much of it. And what we see is, when we convict people of murder at the age 25, and we look back to their juvenile criminal record, there was no consequences.” 

Bregman’s suggested changes to the Children’s Code are wide-ranging. Ultimately, only a couple of lawmakers will determine if Bregman’s suggestions will actually move forward in the Roundhouse in January. 

“We can have a statistical deal where we’re going down, and that’s great. We should applaud all that.” Bregman said. “But that still doesn’t mean that the criminal code for children is updated the way it should be right now.”