Child Delinquency—Official Records
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reports, in 1997 law enforcement agencies made an estimated 253,000 arrests of children age 12 or younger, and these made up 9 percent of all juvenile arrests (i.e., arrests of persons under age 18). Of these arrests of children, 17 percent (about 43,000) involved persons under the age of 10. Only 10 percent of these arrests were for status offenses (e.g., running away from home, curfew violations, and liquor law violations).
Interestingly, between
1988 and 1997, the total number of child arrests increased by only 6 percent,
as compared with a 35-percent increase for all juveniles, and child arrests
for property crimes dropped by 17 percent. However, during this same period,
child arrests for violent crimes increased by 45 percent. Overall, child
delinquents arrested in 1997 were relatively more likely to be charged
with a violent crime, a weapons offense, or a drug law violation than
a property offense (Snyder, 2001).
From 1988 to 1997, the number of cases disposed by juvenile courts involving child delinquents (age 12 or younger) increased by 33 percent to a total of 181,300 cases in 1997, far more than the corresponding increase in child arrests (Snyder, 2001). These data indicate that law enforcement agencies referred a larger percentage of the child delinquents they arrested to juvenile court in 1997 than they had in 1988, probably because the offenses committed became relatively more violent. The racial breakdown of juvenile court referrals also changed during this 10-year period, with court cases of child delinquents increasing by 41 percent for nonwhite youth and 28 percent for white youth. In addition, a greater proportion of the 1997 nonwhite cases (45 percent nonwhite cases versus 37 percent white cases) were placed on the court docket for an adjudicatory hearing (Snyder, 2001).
Overall, from 1988 to 1997, the juvenile courts experienced a substantial change in both the number and types of child delinquents sent to them for processing: child delinquents in 1997 were significantly more likely than their predecessors from a decade earlier to have been charged with a violent offense. In turn, juvenile courts significantly intervened in the lives of a growing number of child delinquents; the number of cases that resulted in formal court-ordered probation increased 73 percent and placements to residential facilities increased 49 percent. Based on data from the 1997 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement—which consisted of a roster of all juveniles in all residential facilities on 1 day—about 19 of every 100,000 youth ages 10–12 were being held in a juvenile facility on a typical day in the United States (Snyder, 2001).
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