Children under 17 were more than twice as likely to die violently in Detroit than in other major U.S. cities in recent years, according to a study. Detroit's juvenile homicide rate jumped to more than three times the overall rate in the nation's 10 largest cities by 1986, according to a study commissioned by the Detroit Free Press. Guns alone have accounted for 37 deaths of Detroit youths so far this year, compared with 35 fatal shootings for all of 1987. Drugs, crumbling families and inattention to children drew much of the blame for the juvenile homicide rate in the nation's sixth-largest city, which declined in only one year between 1979 and 1986. ``We don't love our children enough,'' said Dr. Rosalind Griffin, a Detroit psychiatrist. ``With a homicide rate like this, it can be said that we don't cherish or think of them as the future.'' The Free Press, citing a computer study it commissioned of FBI crime statistics from 1979 through 1986 and related research, said Detroit's juvenile homicide rate during that period was 2.7 per 100,000 residents. Chicago was second at 1.9 per 100,000, followed by Los Angeles with 1.6 per 100,000. The overall rate for the nation's 10 largest cities was 1.3 per 100,000. Detroit's juvenile homicide rate reached 4.1 per 100,000 in 1986, the latest year for which figures were available. That rate was more than three times the 1986 rate in the 10 largest U.S. cities, 1.3 per 100,000. Detroit also had the highest overall homicide rate, 47 per 100,000 residents, among the 10 largest cities in 1979-86. Dallas was a distant second with 31.7 murders per 100,000, the newspaper said.
