ECTOR COUNTY, Texas — We see our fair share of crime here in West Texas, but law enforcement agencies are noticing that the ones committing the crimes are trending younger and younger.
"I've been in investigations now for almost five years and over the last two years the juvenile crime rate has increased I would say probably about 95%," said Heidi Zavala, an investigator for the Ector County Sheriff's Office.
The crimes also tend to be related to each other.
"A lot of the juvenile cases do tend to involve a lot of guns and drugs, some of them are gang related," said Zavala.
Although there's not one single reason why this is happening, there could be some different contributing factors.
"Lack of supervision, that leaves the kids the opportunity to get into trouble," said Zavala. Social media can also influence kids and young adults.
"Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, I mean parents see it in those videos. There's a lot of younger children with guns and vaping and drugs and the social media actually influences our youth a lot," said Zavala.
Law enforcement is seeing firearms that are being used in these crimes being stolen from parents or other citizens in the community.
"We have burglary of a vehicle reports all the time, we've taken hundreds. Also thefts of a firearms where you know a lot of the cases that we are working, these violent crimes with the youth involves these stolen firearms and all of that can be prevented. You know, hold yourself accountable, get gun locks," said Zavala.
Some ways to keep your kids out of trouble is to have open and serious conversations about consequences of drug use and violence, encourage your children to be involved in extracurricular activities and make sure to keep and eye on your kids social media.