The number of teens busted with guns in NYC has skyrocketed 19% this year, even as cops see some gains in the plague of youth violence, new data show.

There have been 423 kids under age 18 arrested so far this year compared to 355 in the same period in 2025, NYPD data show.

There were 76 juveniles shot so far this year, a 19% decrease compared to the same period in 2025 when 93 were shot.

8 An undated photo of 14-year-old Malakai Adams, who was shot and killed at the Ocean Bay Apartments on Beach Channel Drive in Edgemere. Dennis A. Clark for NY Post

This year's tally, 76, is down slightly from 2024, when 78 were shot, according to the data.

The number of young shooters is down 11% this year, with 83 shooting another person so far this year compared to 93 during the same period of 2025, the data show.

But the number of juveniles pulling the trigger is up 6% so far this year over two years ago, to 83 from 78, according to the data.

Police attribute the problem to New York's 2017, soft-on-crime  Raise the Age  law, which mandated housing juvenile offenders separately from adult inmates in correctional facilities.

That, coupled with laws that make some crime ineligible for cash bail, a judge will only send juveniles to the city's main detention centers for the most serious crimes.

 They've been sending the message for years that you're not going to go to jail if you get caught with a loaded gun,  said retired NYPD Assistant Commissioner of Youth Strategies Kevin O'Connor.  It's not only the guns, it's the felony assaults with weapons. 

8 Jackie Rowe-Adams, center, and other parents who lost children to gun violence hold a press conference outside P.S. 154 in Harlem in 2023. J.C. Rice

8 A gun found in a 15-year-old's backpack at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens on Wednesday. Obtained by the New York Post

8 Jackie Rowe-Adams, co-founder of Harlem Mothers and Fathers S.A.V.E., right, is seen during the Police Athletic League's Conversations with Kids on Thursday, Feb. 5. Michael Nagle for NY Post

The NYPD has been using various strategies to fight youth crime, including setti
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