Prince George's County police release strategy to minimize youth crime over summer
Man charged with shooting, killing 2 teens in Temple Hills
Authorities in Prince George’s County are investigating a deadly double shooting that left two teens dead in Temple Hills late Tuesday night.
PRINCE GEORGE'S CO., Md. - Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz was joined by Acting County Executive Tara Jackson Wednesday to talk about successes they’ve seen with crime drops.
The Data
By the numbers:
After modest decreases in 2024, they’ve seen a 27% decrease in violent crime thus far in 2025 compared to last year. They’ve also seen a 13% decrease in property crime.
Chief Aziz touted a series of specific categories where they’ve seen drops, including a 36% drop in homicides and 63% reduction thus far in business robberies.
Aziz credits data-driven policing, community engagement, and businesses who have security cameras and share footage with police as just a few of the many reasons they’ve seen this decrease.
Summer Strategy
Dig deeper:
Aziz and Jackson recognize they need to double down this summer when kids are out of school.
As they’ve done before, Aziz says summer camps, additional patrols, using data to increase patrols in certain areas, bike officers, re-configuring officer overtime to meet policing needs are just a few things they’re doing.
"For our community first division and our bureau of forensics, they’ll be operating a forensics camp for young people, showing them how to take DNA and those things. It’s very different. It doesn’t look like crime fighting, but it is. It’s crime prevention, it’s engaging our youth, it’s looking at something different. So every unit, who has something to offer, operationally, administratively to the community, buying in together, those things are all different during the summer, because it’s ramped up," Aziz says.
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Aziz says they’ll also continue something they did last year, where members of the department who don’t normally have forward-facing jobs get into communities, specifically on Wednesday through Saturday.
"We started a redeployment program last year that everyone outside of patrol would go back to patrol for a period of two weeks and this redeployment has been coordinated to minimize the disruption in ongoing investigations while optimizing resource utilization," Aziz said.
Work To Be Done
What's next:
Aziz and Jackson were candid that there’s more to do. Jackson specifically made a plea to parents and guardians to know where your kids are.
"We need you to continue to partner with us in keeping our children, your children safe. Do your best to know where your young people are, where young people you love are, and what they’re doing," Jackson said.
Hiring and retaining officers is another focus, along with engaging with what Aziz says is a small number of kids who they’re trying to reach that cause concern.