In 1997, 58% of all delinquency cases processed by the Nation's juvenile courts involved youth who were age 15 or younger at the time of referral, compared with 57% in 1988 (table 21). In 1997, juveniles age 15 or younger were responsible for 64% of person offense cases, 62% of property offense cases, 40% of drug law violation cases, and 53% of public order offense cases.

Compared with the delinquency caseload involving older juveniles, the caseload of youth age 15 or younger in 1997 included larger proportions of person and property offense cases and smaller proportions of drug and public order offense cases. Property offense cases accounted for 51% of the cases involving youth age 15 or younger, compared with 44% of cases involving youth age 16 or older; drug law violations made up 7% of cases involving younger juveniles, compared with 15% of cases involving older juveniles (table 22).

In 1997, delinquency case rates generally increased with the age of the juvenile. For example, the case rate for 16-year-olds was nearly double the rate for 14-year-olds, while the rate for 14-year-olds was 3 times the rate for 12-year-olds (figure 6). Contrary to this pattern, the case rate for 17-year-olds was slightly less than the rate for 16-year-olds. The Nation's juvenile courts disposed 118.3 delinquency cases for every 1,000 youth age 17 in the juvenile population in 1997, compared with 120.7 cases for every 1,000 youth age 16.

For all age groups 12 and older, delinquency case rates increased 28% or more between 1988 and 1997 (table 23). Delinquency case rates reached a 10-year peak in 1997 for each of these age groups. For 10-year-olds, however, case rates dropped 5% between 1988 and 1997.

Patterns of age-specific case rates varied among individual offense categories in 1997. Case rates increased continuously with age for drug and public order offenses, while rates for person and property offenses peaked in the 16-year-old age group and then declined slightly for 17-year-olds (figure 7). Drug law violation case rates showed the sharpest increases after age 13. The case rate for drug offenses for 17-year-old juveniles was 770% greater than the corresponding case rate for 13-year-olds. For person offenses, the 17-year-olds' case rate was 78% greater than the 13-year-olds' case rate. For property offenses, the difference in case rates between these two ages was 102%, while for public order offenses, the difference was 237%.