Notes

In this Bulletin, “juvenile” refers to persons under age 18. This definition is at odds with the legal definition of juveniles in 1999 in 13 States—10 States where all 17-year-olds are defined as adults and 3 States where all 16- and 17-year-olds are defined as adults.

FBI arrest data in this Bulletin are counts of arrests detailed by age of arrestee and offense categories from all law enforcement agencies that reported complete data for the calendar year. The proportion of the U.S. population covered by these reporting agencies ranged from 63% to 94% between 1980 and 1999, with the 1999 coverage being 63%.

Estimates of the number of persons in each age group in the reporting agencies’ resident populations assume that the resident population age profiles are like the Nation’s. Reporting agencies’ total populations were multiplied by the U.S. Bureau of the Census’ most current estimate of the proportion of the U.S. population for each age group.

Analysis of arrest data from unpublished FBI reports for 1980 through 1997 and from Crime in the United States reports for 1998 and 1999 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999 and 2000, respectively); population data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1980 to 1999 [machine-readable data files available online, released April 11, 2000].

Juvenile Arrests 1999	Juvenile Justice Bulletin • December 2000