There were an estimated 1.25 million juvenile delinquency cases handled by the courts in 1974, an increase of 9 percent over the 1973 estimate. Both urban, semi-urban, and rural courts experienced case increases during that period. Reports of police arrests of juveniles were very similar to the data obtained from juvenile courts in their long-range trends. Serious offenses against persons represented about 4 percent of all arrests of juveniles. While delinquency remained mostly a boys' problem, the gap between the number of boy and girl offenders narrowed; the number of girls' delinquency cases disposed of by juvenile courts rose faster than boys' cases every year between 1965 and 1974. In 1974, 53 percent of juvenile delinquency cases disposed of by juvenile courts were handled judicially. While dependency and neglect cases in the U.S. increased 12 percent between 1972 and 1973, there was an estimated decline of 4 percent in 1974. 12 tables, 10 notes, and 1 appendix