When I was a teenager caught up in the juvenile justice system, I learned something President Trump refuses to acknowledge: the system fails most kids it touches, and treating children like enemies of the state makes communities less safe.

This week, Trump announced plans to deploy 800 National Guard troops to Washington D.C., threatening that cities like Oakland and Baltimore could be next. Simultaneously, he's demanding that D.C. prosecute kids as young as 14 as adults. It's the same failed playbook — respond to complex social problems with more police, more cages for children, and now, soldiers on American streets.

What makes this particularly absurd is that crime is actually falling in the cities he's threatening. Baltimore is experiencing one of its lowest homicide rates in decades, down 23 percent from last year alone. My hometown of Oakland has seen similar progress through community investment, not militarization.

Trump's rhetoric diverges sharply from what actually transforms young lives. For........

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