In 2021, there were about 123,000 serious violent crimes committed by youths between the ages of 12 and 17 in the United States, an increase from the year before. However, this is still a significant decrease from 1994 levels, when violent crimes committed by youths hit a peak at over 1.05 million serious crimes.

Youth and crime

According to the most recent data, criminal youths in the United States continue to participate in violent crimes each year. In 2022, there were over 1,000 murder offenders between the ages of 13 and 16 in the United States. Studies have also shown that crimes are reported against children at U.S. schools, with students aged between 12 and 14 years found more likely to be victims of violent crime and theft. However, the number of adolescent violent crime victims in the U.S. far surpasses the number of adolescent perpetrators. The number of adolescent victims has also declined significantly since the early 1990s, following the national downward trend of violent crime.

Overall downward trends

There is not only a downward trend in the number of violent crimes committed by youths, but also in the share of crimes involving youths. On a national level, the crime rate has also decreased in almost every state, showing that the country is becoming safer as a whole.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed. The research project has tested a possible explanation for the Great American Crime Decline of the 1990s and especially 2000s: the increasing rates at which psychotropic drugs are prescribed, especially to children and adolescents. Psychotropic drugs are often prescribed to youth for mental health conditions that involve disruptive and impulsive behaviors and learning difficulties. The effects of these drugs are thus expected to lead to the decrease in the juveniles' involvement in delinquency and violence. The effects of two legislative changes are hypothesized to have contributed to the increased prescribing of psychotropic drugs to children growing up in families in poverty: 1) changes in eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) that made it possible for poor children to qualify for additional financial assistance due to mental health conditions (1990 and 1996), and 2) changes in school accountability rules following the passage of No Child Left Behind Act (2002) that put pressure on schools in some low-income areas to qualify academically challenged students as having ADHD or other learning disabilities. The objectives of the project are: 1) to assemble a data set, using state-level data from various publicly available sources, containing information about trends in juvenile delinquency and violence, trends in psychotropic drug prescribing to children and adolescents, and various control variables associated with these two sets of trends; 2) to test the proposed hypotheses about the effect of increasing psychotropic medication prescribing to children and adolescents on juvenile delinquency and violence, using the assembled data set; and 3) to disseminate the scientific knowledge gained through this study among criminal justice researchers, psychiatric and public health scientists, as well as among a wider audience of practitioners and the general public. This collection includes one SPSS file (Dataset_NIJ_GRANT_2014-R2-CX-0003_DV-IV_3-29-17.sav; n=1,275, 113 variables) and one Word syntax file (doc36775-0001_syntax.docx).

This release will provide local level information on the number of young people aged 10-17 receiving their first reprimand, warning or conviction. It is based on data recorded on the Police National Computer and will include 6 monthly data. The statistics inform local areas of the number of first-time entrants aged 10-17 to the criminal justice system in their area.

Source agency: Education

Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Young people aged 10-17 receiving their first reprimand, warning or conviction

The purpose of this study was to assess both the school-level effects and the participant-level effects of Youth Crime Watch (YCW) programs. Abt Associates conducted a four-year impact evaluation of Youth Crime Watch (YCW) programs in three Florida school districts (Broward, Hillsborough, and Pinellas Counties). School-based YCW programs implement one or more of a variety of crime prevention activities, including youth patrol, in which YCW participants patrol their school campus and report misconduct and crime. The evaluation collected both School-Level Data (Part 1) and Student-Level Data (Part 2). The School-Level Data (Part 1) contain 9 years of data on 172 schools in the Broward, Hillsborough, and Pinellas school districts, beginning in the 1997-1998 school year and continuing through the 2005-2006 school year. A total of 103 middle schools and 69 high schools were included, yielding a total of 1,548 observations. These data provide panel data on reported incidents of crime and violence, major disciplinary actions, and school climate data across schools and over time. The Student-Level Data (Part 2) were collected between 2004 and 2007 and are comprised of two major components: (1) self-reported youth attitude and school activities survey data that were administered to a sample of students in middle schools in the Broward, Hillsborough, and Pinellas School Districts as part of a participant impact analysis, and (2) self-reported youth attitude and school activities survey data that were administered to a sample of YCW continuing middle school students and YCW high school students in the same three school districts as part of a process analysis. For Part 2, a total of 3,386 completed surveys were collected by the project staff including 1,319 "new YCW" student surveys, 1,581 "non-YCW" student surveys, and 486 "Pro" or "Process" student surveys. The 138 variables in the School-Level Data (Part 1) include Youth Crime Watch (YCW) program data, measures of crime and the level of school safety in a school, and other school characteristics. The 99 variables in the Student-Level Data (Part 2) include two groups of questions for assessing participant impact: (1) how the respondents felt about themselves, and (2) whether the respondent would report certain types of problems or crimes that they observed at the school. Part 2 also includes administrative variables and demographic/background information. Other variables in Part 2 pertain to the respondent's involvement in school-based extracurricular activities, involvement in community activities, attitudes toward school, attitudes about home environment, future education plans, attitudes toward the YCW advisor, attitudes about effects of YCW, participation in YCW, reasons for joining YCW, and reasons for remaining in YCW.

In 2019, the robbery arrest rate for persons under age ** in Illinois stood at ***. Arrest rate is defined as the number of arrests of persons under age ** for every 100,000 persons aged 10 - 17 years old.

In 2019, the aggravated assault arrest rate for persons under age ** in Nevada stood at ***. Arrest rate is defined as the number of arrests of persons under age ** for every 100,000 persons aged 10 - 17 years old.

The dataset contains year- and state-wise compiled data on the total number of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other Special and Local Laws (SLL) cases registered against Juveniles, along with rate of crimes per each lakh of children population.

In 2020, the drug abuse arrest rate for persons under age 18 in Wyoming stood at ***, the most out of any state. The national average stood at *** in that same year. The arrest rate is defined as the number of arrests of persons under age 18 for every 100,000 persons aged 10 to 17.

This study was conducted to address the dropping rates in residential placements of adjudicated youth after the 1990s. Policymakers, advocates, and reseraches began to attirbute the decline to reform measures and proposed that this was the cause of the drop seen in historic national crime. In response, researchers set out to use state-level data on economic factors, crime rates, political ideology scores, and youth justice policies and practices to test the association between the youth justice policy environment and recent reductions in out-of-home placements for adjudicated youth. This data collection contains two files, a multivariate and bivariate analyses. In the multivariate file the aim was to assess the impact of the progressive policy characteristics on the dependent variable which is known as youth confinement. In the bivariate analyses file Wave 1-Wave 10 the aim was to assess the states as they are divided into 2 groups across all 16 dichotomized variables that comprised the progressive policy scale: those with more progressive youth justice environments and those with less progressive or punitive environments. Some examples of these dichotomized variables include purpose clause, courtroom shackling, and competency standard.

This national-level survey of youth was undertaken to gather detailed behavioral and attitudinal data concerning weapons and violence. The research project sought to obtain information from a broad sample of high-school-aged youth to achieve diversity regarding history, cultural background, population size and density, urban and non-urban mix, economic situation, and class, race, and ethnic distributions. Data for the study were derived from two surveys conducted during the spring of 1996. The first survey was a lengthy questionnaire that focused on exposure to weapons (primarily firearms and knives) and violence, and was completed by 733 10th- and 11th-grade male students. Detail was gathered on all weapon-related incidents up to 12 months prior to the survey. The second survey, consisting of a questionnaire completed by 48 administrators of the 53 schools that the students attended, provided information regarding school characteristics, levels of weapon-related activity in the schools, and anti-violence strategies employed by the schools. The student survey covered demographic characteristics of the respondent, family living situations, educational situations and aspirations, drug, criminal, and gang activities, crime- and violence-related characteristics of family and friends, respondent's social and recreational activities, exposure to violence generally, personal victimization history, and possession of and activities relating to firearms and knives. Administrators were asked to provide basic demographic data about their schools and to rate the seriousness of violence, drugs, guns, and other weapons in their institutions. They were asked to provide weapon-related information about the average male junior in their schools as well as to estimate the number of incidents involving types of weapons on school grounds during the past three years. The administrators were also asked to identify, from an extensive list of violence reduction measures, those that were practiced at their schools. Variables are also provided about the type of school, grades taught, enrollment, and size of the community. In addition to the data collected directly from students and school administrators, Census information concerning the cities and towns in which the sampled schools were located was also obtained. Census data include size of the city or town, racial and ethnic population distributions, age, gender, and educational attainment distributions, median household and per capita income distributions, poverty rates, labor force and unemployment rates, and violent and property crime rates.

Much of the analysis of juvenile justice reform to date has focused on assessing particular programs and their impacts on subgroups of cases at a particular point in time. While this is instructive as to the effects of those initiatives, it is essential to evaluate the impact of policy across multiple levels and with multiple stakeholders in mind. Ohio has implemented a series of initiatives in its juvenile justice system designed to reduce reliance on state custody of youth in favor of local alternatives. In doing so, they have focused on multiple segments of the population of justice involved-youths throughout the state. The main vehicle for these shifts has been the state's Reasoned and Equitable Community and Local Alternatives to the Incarceration of Minors (RECLAIM) legislation and a series of initiatives that have followed from its inception. Other steps were followed and programming modifications were made during the study period as well. This research project focused on these initiatives as a case study of juvenile justice reform initiatives in order to provide insights about the impact of those recent reforms across multiple dimensions that were viewed as relevant to the discussion of juvenile justice reform. The data set analyzed at the individual level included the records of more than 5,000 youths sampled from cases processed from 2008 to 2015. First, presumed reductions in the number of youth committed to state residential correctional facilities in favor of community-based alternatives were analyzed. The relative effectiveness of residential facilities and community-based alternatives in terms of youth recidivism were then assessed with a subsample of 2,855 case records from randomly-selected counties. A third research objective focused on county-level trends and variation. Specifically, the longitudinal trends in key juvenile justice inputs and official juvenile crime rates across Ohio's 88 counties were formally modeled using data from public reports, data collection with counties, and official juvenile arrest data archived by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Elements of the previous analyses (especially comparative recidivism rates) and cost data collected from existing sources and public reports were used in a preliminary fashion to quantify the potential return on investment that accrued from Ohio's investment in these juvenile justice initiatives. This deposit contains two datasets: Individual Level Data and County Level Data. The Individual Level Data contains the following demographic data: age at admission, sex, and race (White, Black, Asian, Native American, and other).

Crime severity index (violent, non-violent, youth) and weighted clearance rates (violent, non-violent), Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1998 to 2024.

In India in 2022, the crime rate against children in the capital territory of Delhi was at ***** per 100,000 children. This was followed by the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar with *** reported cases per 100,000 child population.

This dataset was compiled by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) at the request of the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet. This data contains the population of youth ages 13-26 in each county, the total population of each county, and the number and rate of index crimes reported, with domestic violence offenses and rates reported separately for every year between 2006 and 2015.

For the purpose of this analysis the crime data was gathered from the Illinois State Police Annual report Crime in Illinois. This publication is produced by the Illinois State Police every year using the UCR data that is submitted to them by individual jurisdictions throughout the state. The accuracy of this data presented is dependent on the local jurisdictions reporting their index crime and domestic violence offenses to ISP, so it can be included in the annual report.

Therefore, if there is large decrease in number of index crimes reported in the dataset it is likely that one or more jurisdictions did not report data for that year to ISP. If there is a large increase from year to year within a county it is likely that a jurisdiction within the county, who previously had not reported crime data, did report crime data for that year. If there is no reported crime in a certain year that means no jurisdictions, or a small jurisdiction with no crime from that county reported data to the Illinois State Police. The annual Crime in Illinois reports can be found on the ISP website www.isp.state.il.us.

A direct link to that annual reports is: http://www.isp.state.il.us/crime/ucrhome.cfm#anlrpts.

The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority did not record the data that is expressed in the dataset. ICJIA simply used the ISP reports to compile that yearly crime data into one chart that could be provided to the Illinois Governor’s Children’s Cabinet. This data set has be critically examined to be accurate according to the annual Crime in Illinois Reports. If there are issues with the data set provided please contact the Illinois State Police or the individual jurisdictions within a specific county.

**Index offenses do not include every crime event that occurs. Prior to 2014 there were 8 index crimes reported by the Illinois State Police in their annual reports, Criminal Homicide, Rape, Robbery, Aggravated Battery/Aggravated Assault, Burglary, Theft, Motor Vehicle Theft, and Arson. In 2014 there were two new offenses added to the list of index crimes these were Human Trafficking – Commercial Sex Acts and Human Trafficking – Involuntary Servitude. These are the index crimes that are recorded in the chart provided.

**“Domestic offenses are defined as offenses committed between family or household members. Family or household members include spouses; former spouses; parents; children; foster parents; foster children; legal guardians and their wards; stepchildren; other persons related by blood (aunt, uncle, cousin) or by present or previous marriage (in-laws); persons who share, or formerly shared, a common dwelling; persons who have, or allegedly have, a child in common; persons who share, or allegedly share, a blood relationship through a child; persons who have, or have had, a dating or engagement relationship; and persons with disabilities, their personal care assistants, or care givers outside the context of an employee of a public or private care facility. Every offense that occurs, when a domestic relationship exists between the victim and offender, must be reported (Illinois State Police).”

**“Offenses reported are not limited to domestic battery and violations of orders of protection; offenses most commonly associated with domestic violence (Illinois State Police).”

The crime rate was compiled using the total population, and the index crime. The Index crime whether all crime or Domestic Violence crime was divided by the total population then multiplied by 10,000, hence crime rate per 10,000.

The sources of data are the Illinois Uniform Crime Reporting Program and the U.S. Census Bureau.

The source of the description is the Illinois State Police and their Reporting guidelines and forms.

An estimate of the proportion and number of police recorded crimes committed by young people aged 10 to 17 in 2009/10. The approach used was to apply data on proven offending from the Police National Computer, which contains the key information on the age of proven offenders, to police recorded crime statistics. The analysis estimates that young people aged 10 to 17 were responsible for 23 per cent of police recorded crime in 2009/10, equivalent to just over a million police recorded crimes. This finding highlights the importance of tackling crime by young people in reducing overall levels of crime.

Police recorded crime figures by Police Force Area and Community Safety Partnership areas (which equate in the majority of instances, to local authorities).

This statistic provides information on the juvenile arrest rate for property crimes in the United States in 2014, sorted by state. Arrest rate is defined as the number of arrests of persons under age 18 for every 100.000 persons aged 10 - **. In 2014, the property crime arrest rate for persons under age 18 in Alabama stood at ***. Property crime includes burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson.