Toronto youth on ‘trajectory that is not healthy,’ warns police chief

Toronto has seen a drop in crime rates across the city, but its police chief says youth crime rates continue to be a cause for concern. 

The city saw a number of high-profile crimes involving teens in 2025.

In January, Toronto police charged four teenage boys they believed were behind a carjacking and two robberies that month. Three teens were charged with first-degree murder in connection with a fatal double shooting in Toronto's Riverdale neighbourhood in April. And in September, a 12-year-old boy was charged after an unhoused man was killed in an unprovoked attack.

“Our young people are on a trajectory that is not healthy and this will have ramifications for years and years — if not generations — to come,” police Chief Myron Demkiw told CBC Toronto’s Dwight Drummond.

Demkiw made comments about youth violence during a year-end interview, where he reflected on the city’s top public safety issues, after a year marked by several violent incidents but an overall decline in major crimes.

“It seems that the kinds of crimes that young people are [involved] in are even more alarming these days than they used to be,” he said. "There's a brazenness to it and a volatility and unpredictability to it that we, frankly, haven't seen historically to this level.”

Demkiw said teenagers are usually recruited via social media by older organized crime members due to the lesser penalties underaged people face under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Tyler Frederick, an associate professor at Ontario Tech University’s faculty of social science and humanities, said that’s an underexplored area that needs to be addressed.

“Social media might expand the reach of criminal networks,” he told CBC Toronto.

As for why youth might commit crime, Frederick said it all traces back to early life experiences, such as feeling left out, facing economic barriers or a lack of access to social support for disabilities and mental illness.

“Young people who start to struggle early in life, they kind of get tracked into these pathways where they're more likely to meet people who are involved in crime,” he said. “You run the risk of more young people falling through the cracks.”

Demkiw said combatting the crime requires everyone from parents to school boards, health-care agencies to social services getting more involved in the lives of at-risk youth. Frederick said the chief’s right, but teenagers also need improved social media literacy and conflict resolution.

“The pathway that leads a young person to commit a crime is really complicated and it's not one thing,” Frederick said. 

Toronto saw a sharp decline in crime rates in 2025, police data shows.