In a bid to reverse an uptick in juvenile arrests, the Howard County Police Department is rolling out a new program this summer to teach at-risk youths entering high school about leadership, police said.

“We’re trying to promote positive interaction with the police,” said Capt. Karen Shinham, who oversees the department’s youth division.

The three one-week camps, funded by a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, target students in the summer before their freshman year, she said.

“We are not calling it a ‘gang camp,’ ” Shinham said. “It’s called a leadership camp.”

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Patterned after Bear Trax, a 20-year-old summer program for elementary school children transitioning into middle school, the leadership camps fill a generational gap in at-risk programming, Shinham said.

“What we were finding is that we do a lot of stuff with elementary school kids, and we have school resource officers in the high schools, but we hope the leadership camp really helps this in-between segment,” Shinham said.

Police Chief William McMahon, a strong advocate for such programs, addressed the juvenile crime trend at the meeting Tuesday with Running Brook residents following the second of two deaths in that area.

“We’re seeing more juvenile arrests in the county than ever before,” he said.

Juvenile arrests have climbed steadily in the past five years, as county public-safety agencies and the state Department of Juvenile Services have shored up programs to help keep at-risk youth out of trouble.

In 2006, county police arrested 100 juveniles for violent crimes — a 15 percent increase from 2005 — and 540 juveniles for property crimes, according to department statistics.

As with Bear Trax, teachers and administrators recommend students for the leadership camps to the police department, which contacts their parents.

The same school resource officers who patrol their schools will serve as the students’ camp counselors, sparking a relationship before the first day of school, Shinham said.

The first camp, in Oakland Mills, begins July 9. The second and third camps will be in Long Reach and Wilde Lake.

BY THE NUMBERS

» In the first quarter of this year, police arrested 14 juveniles for robbery, down 30 percent from the same period last year.

» Police arrested 22 juveniles for aggravated assault, up 10 percent.

» Police arrested 9 juveniles for burglary, down 67 percent.

» Police arrested 113 for theft, down 3 percent.

Source: Howard County police

jpalazzolo@baltimoreexaminer.com