The Federal Bureau of Investigations released its annual crime report yesterday and violent crime nationwide increased for the second consecutive year. Murders reached their highest level in decades. Gen Y is responsible. Why? Read on.

Few would debate that the main perpetrators of violent crime are teenagers and other young adults and most of those reside within our urban communities. Much of their criminal activities victimize their peers and those who reside within their communities. In Minneapolis, for example, a 12 year old girl was shot in the head last week. Her only mistake was that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time: she was walking home from a party when someone fired a gun a block away at someone else but missed their intended target. In most cases the bullet would have lodged in the wall of a house, a vehicle, or a tree. But in this case it hit a girl. A 12 year old girl.

So why do I blame Gen Y? I don't. I don't blame the entire generation. But I do recognize that violent crimes such as the Minneapolis incidents are largely carried out by teenagers and other young adults and those members of our society are all members of Gen Y. Each generation before Gen Y has been responsible for these types of crimes so it isn't a surprise that it is now Gen Y's turn. But what scares me is that the largest high school graduating class in our nation's history is the class of 2009. So these kids are now about 16 years old. They're just entering the age when they will be most likely to commit violent crimes. I hate to look at it this way, but the reality is that we're heading towards a surge in violent crime that likely won't subside for another six to 10 years.