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.

In 2021, around 9.7 percent of serious violent crime cases in the United States involved teenagers, an increase from the previous year, where 7.5 percent of serious violent crimes involved teenagers. The share of serious violent crimes involving children between 12 and 17 years old reached a peak in 1994, at 25.1 percent.

The data, by region, contains: * the number of violations under the Youth Criminal Justice Act * child pornography * sexual violations against children * luring a child via a computer * making sexually explicit material available to children The survey was designed to measure the incidence of crime in our society and its characteristics. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, in co-operation with the policing community, collects police-reported crime statistics through the UCR survey. Adapted from Statistics Canada, CANSIM Table 252-0077, 2015. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. *[ CANSIM]: Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System *[UCR]: Uniform Crime Reporting

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.

The research team collected data on homicide, robbery, and assault offending from 1984-2006 for youth 13 to 24 years of age in 91 of the 100 largest cities in the United States (based on the 1980 Census) from various existing data sources. Data on youth homicide perpetration were acquired from the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) and data on nonlethal youth violence (robbery and assault) were obtained from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Annual homicide, robbery, and assault arrest rates per 100,000 age-specific populations (i.e., 13 to 17 and 18 to 24 year olds) were calculated by year for each city in the study. Data on city characteristics were derived from several sources including the County and City Data Books, SHR, and the Vital Statistics Multiple Cause of Death File. The research team constructed a dataset representing lethal and nonlethal offending at the city level for 91 cities over the 23-year period from 1984 to 2006, resulting in 2,093 city year observations.

The dataset includes incident-based crime statistics at the provincial level. Statistics included in the dataset are the number of youth charged or not charged, and rates per 100,000 youth population for total Criminal Code violations (excluding traffic), total violent Criminal Code violations, total property crime violations, and total other Criminal Code violations. Data source: Statistics Canada.

The dataset includes crime statistics from law enforcement agencies operating in Nova Scotia. It is based on police-reported incidents of crime reported through the national Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR). Statistics include the Crime Severity Index (CSI), the Violent Crime Severity Index (VCSI), and the Non-violent Crime Severity Index (NVCSI). Data source: Statistics Canada.

In 2023, the youth crime severity index value in Canada increased by 3.3 points (+6.55 percent) since 2022. In total, the crime severity index amounted to 53.74 points in 2023.

Content

This dataset contains information on the number of juvenile arrests in the US per crime category for each year between 1995 and 2016. The number of arrests is further broken down by sex, age group, and race for each crime category. This data is collected by the FBI as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

Acknowledgements

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer Image by @anneniuniu on Unsplash

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

Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent, property, traffic, drugs, other Federal Statutes), Canada, provinces, territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Canadian Forces Military Police, 1998 to 2024.

Provide data on theft crimes committed by teenagers (12 years of age and above but under 24 years of age) (This data is preliminary statistics at the beginning of each quarter, for reference only, and the accurate statistics are still based on the annual crime statistics data of this department.)

The Division of Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) was created to consolidate child abuse prevention and juvenile delinquency prevention and early intervention programs within the jurisdiction of a single state agency. Consolidation of these programs is intended to eliminate fragmentation and duplication of contracted prevention and early intervention services for at-risk children, youth, and families: Community Youth Development (CYD) - The CYD program contracts with community-based organizations to develop juvenile delinquency prevention programs in ZIP codes with high juvenile crime rates. Approaches used by communities to prevent delinquency have included mentoring, youth employment programs, career preparation, youth leadership development and recreational activities. Communities prioritize and fund specific prevention services according to local needs. CYD services are available in 15 targeted Texas ZIP codes. Family and Youth Success Program (FAYS) (formerly Services to At-Risk Youth (STAR)) - The FAYS program contracts with community agencies to offer family crisis intervention counseling, short- term emergency respite care, and individual and family counseling. Youth up to age 17 and their families are eligible if they experience conflict at home, truancy or delinquency, or a youth who runs away from home. FAYS services are available in all 254 Texas counties. Each FAYS contractor also provides universal child abuse prevention services, ranging from local media campaigns to informational brochures and parenting classes. Statewide Youth Services Network (SYSN) - The SYSN program contracts provide community and evidence-based juvenile delinquency prevention programs focused on youth ages 10 through 17, in each DFPS region. NOTE: For FY15, as a result of a new procurement, the overall number of youth served decreased however the service requirements were enhanced with additional programmatic components. Data as of December 11, 2024.

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).

The number of persons aged 10 to 17 arrested for drug-related offenses per 1,000 juveniles that live in an area. Drug-related offenses include arrests for possession, sale, manufacture, or abuse of illegal drugs, including alcohol. This indicator is calculated by where the arrested juvenile was arrested and not by where the crime is committed. Arrests are used instead of crimes committed since not all juveniles that are arrested are charged with committing a crime. This indicator also excludes offenders who are later charged as adults for their crime(s). Source: Baltimore Police Department Years Available: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

The data contains the number of criminal incidents, the clearance status of those incidents and persons-charged, by MCYS region (Central, East, North, Toronto, West, Other). The survey was designed to measure the incidence of crime in our society and its characteristics. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, in co-operation with the policing community, collects police-reported crime statistics through the UCR survey. Adapted from Statistics Canada, CANSIM Table 252-0077, 2015. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. *[MCYS]: Ministry of Children and Youth Services *[ CANSIM]: Canadian Socio-Economic Information Management System *[UCR]: Uniform Crime Reporting