Another string of late-night car burglaries has plagued the city, mostly in west Batesville, the past two weeks, although Batesville Police say several recent juvenile arrests seem to have stopped this latest rash.

In an all-to-familiar refrain, city residents have reported finding their cars have been burglarized in the wee hours of night when police patrols can be seen easily. The culprits rarely break into cars, usually going from house to house to quickly check for unlocked doors.

“It only takes them two or three minutes to go down a whole street so it’s hard to catch them, but fortunately we’ve made arrests lately that have stopped some of this crime,” said Barry Thompson, Deputy Chief of Police.

The next step is taking the juveniles arrested before the Youth Court judge in an attempt to have them certified as adults. Only then, Thompson said, can police detain a person arrested for these kinds of crimes.

“That’s what makes it so frustrating for our officers,” he said. “They will make arrests and the kids are back on the streets, sometimes committing more crimes, before they get all the paperwork filled out.”

“We’ve been arresting (the recent suspects) them for months,” he said. “Hopefully we will be able to get them certified and maybe stop them from all this.”

Youth Courts consider a preponderance of evidence, relying mostly on the number of times a juvenile has been arrested, when police ask for an underage suspect to be certified as an adult. 

Major, and horrendous, crimes usually get the accused an adult certification with a short hearing, but in Mississippi the courts are slow to take a juvenile offender (even habitual) from the relatively protective Youth Court system and transfer them to the adult courts.

Batesville and Panola County law enforcement officials also have virtually no place to take juveniles for holding. There are no approved cells at the Panola County jail and facilities located several hours away are often full.

Those facilities who do accept juvenile offenders for holding during investigations almost always refuse to hold any child who has been treated for any mental disorder or who takes medications, further frustrating officers who need to have a juvenile detained for his/her own safety or for the safety of the general public.