This Bulletin was prepared under grant number 98-JN-FX-0012 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice.

Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

From the Administrator The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system and the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey do not collect information about crimes committed against persons under 12 years of age and thus do not provide a comprehensive picture of juvenile crime victimization. Designed to replace UCR as the national database for crimes reported to law enforcement, the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) includes detailed data about juvenile victims. This Bulletin reviews data from the 1997 NIBRS data file that pertain to juvenile victims, revealing that while juveniles made up 26 percent in the population of the 12 States participating in NIBRS in 1997, they accounted for only 12 percent of the reported crime victims. At the same time, however, 71 percent of all sex crime victims and 38 percent of all kidnaping victims reported to NIBRS were juveniles. Although the data collected from the States participating in NIBRS in 1997 were not necessarily representative of the Nation as a whole, they represent a considerable number of reported crimes and thus constitute an invaluable resource for crime analysis. As the Bulletin's authors conclude, NIBRS should prove a crucial tool in years to come for researchers and practitioners seeking to improve public policies regarding juvenile crime victims. John J. Wilson Acting Administrator