Most people would not think of New Mexico and “crime” in the same sentence without thinking about Breaking Bad. But Albuquerque is in the middle of a crime crisis that most people may not have heard about, bringing up all the same issues that have already been examined in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington.

New Mexico is dealing with a crime crisis on two fronts, relitigating the same issues of drugs and juvenile criminals that cities across the country have had to wrestle with since 2020. More and more teenagers have been arrested on homicide charges in Albuquerque, with a shocking hit-and-run vehicular homicide, allegedly by three juveniles aged 15, 12, and 11, against a cyclist making national news. The 11-year-old has a history of burglaries and break-ins and was on police’s radar for becoming more and more violent in his crimes.

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Sam Bregman, the district attorney for Bernalillo County, home to Albuquerque, wants more tools at his disposal. Bregman pushed the state legislature to pass multiple bills on juvenile crime in the last legislative session, including one that would increase punishments for juvenile criminals, such as making it possible to prosecute juveniles accused of voluntary manslaughter as adults, while also allocating funds for diversion programs. That bill was voted down, along with every other one that was put forward.

Meanwhile, fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs are wreaking havoc on Albuquerque communities. As of 2022, the last year of data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New Mexico has the seventh-highest rate of overdose deaths. As Albuquerque Fire Rescue Chief Emily Jaramillo put it, looking up and down Central Avenue makes it clear how big of a problem drug addiction and homelessness have become in Albuquerque.

Drugs and juvenile crime have become such a problem that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) is mobilizing the National Guard to support local law enforcement. According to Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina, the National Guard will take on tasks that free up local police to spend more time patrolling.

But, of course, it wouldn’t be a crime crisis without the American Civil Liberties Union complaining about police doing their job. “New Mexico already has one of the highest per capita rates of people killed by police in the nation,” the ACLU of New Mexico whined, warning that this would lead to “increased civil rights violations, racial profiling, and criminalization of vulnerable populations, particularly those experiencing homelessness and poverty.”

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Better that Albuquerque police run in circles trying to keep up with fentanyl overdoses and teenagers mowing people down in stolen cars. After all, reading the ACLU’s statement would have you believe that those police officers are the real problem in New Mexico, would it not?

We have seen this all play out in the big-name cities. Juvenile offenders think they can get off easy and get increasingly more violent while lawmakers do nothing to prove them wrong. Drug addiction is allowed to spiral because “advocates” think it is too scary to police the streets. New Mexico and Albuquerque are no different, except that they aren’t as high-profile as Chicago or California.