MENU TITLE: Juvenile Court Statistics 1994. Series: OJJDP Published: December 1996 61 pages 133,839 bytes Juvenile Court Statistics 1994 Statistics Report Jeffery A. Butts Howard N. Snyder Terrence A. Finnegan Anne L. Aughenbaugh Rowen S. Poole National Center for Juvenile Justice Shay Bilchik, Administrator Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention December 1996 ------------------------------ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) was established by the President and Congress through the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act of 1974, Public Law 93-415, as amended. Located within the Office of Justice Programs of the U.S. Department of Justice, OJJDP's goal is to provide national leadership in addressing the issues of juvenile delinquency and improving juvenile justice. OJJDP sponsors a broad array of research, program, and training initiatives to improve the juvenile justice system as a whole, as well as to benefit individual youth-serving agencies. These initiatives are carried out by seven components within OJJDP, described below. Research and Program Development Division develops knowledge on national trends in juvenile delinquency; supports a program for data collection and information sharing that incorporates elements of statistical and systems development; identifies how delinquency develops and the best methods for its prevention, intervention, and treatment; and analyzes practices and trends in the juvenile justice system. Training and Technical Assistance Division provides juvenile justice training and technical assistance to Federal, State, and local governments; law enforcement, judiciary, and corrections personnel; and private agencies, educational institutions, and community organizations. Special Emphasis Division provides discretionary funds to public and private agencies, organizations, and individuals to replicate tested approaches to delinquency prevention, treatment, and control in such pertinent areas as chronic juvenile offenders, community-based sanctions, and the disproportionate representation of minorities in the juvenile justice system. State Relations and Assistance Division supports collaborative efforts by States to carry out the mandates of the JJDP Act by providing formula grant funds to States; furnishing technical assistance to States, local governments, and private agencies; and monitoring State compliance with the JJDP Act. Information Dissemination Unit informs individuals and organizations of OJJDP initiatives; disseminates information on juvenile justice, delinquency prevention, and missing children; and coordinates program planning efforts within OJJDP. The unit's activities include publishing research and statistical reports, bulletins, and other documents, as well as overseeing the operations of the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse. Concentration of Federal Efforts Program promotes interagency cooperation and coordination among Federal agencies with responsibilities in the area of juvenile justice. The program primarily carries out this responsibility through the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, an independent body within the executive branch that was established by Congress through the JJDP Act. Missing and Exploited Children's Program seeks to promote effective policies and procedures for addressing the problem of missing and exploited children. Established by the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1984, the program provides funds for a variety of activities to support and coordinate a network of resources such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; training and technical assistance to a network of 47 State clearinghouses, nonprofit organizations, law enforcement personnel, and attorneys; and research and demonstration programs. The mission of OJJDP is to provide national leadership, coordination, and resources to prevent juvenile victimization and respond appropriately to juvenile delinquency. This is accomplished through developing and implementing prevention programs and a juvenile justice system that protects the public safety, holds juvenile offenders accountable, and provides treatment and rehabilitative services based on the needs of each individual juvenile. This report was prepared by the National Center for Juvenile Justice, the research division of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, and was supported by grant number 95-JN-FX- 0008 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Copyright 1996, National Center for Juvenile Justice, 710 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15219- 3000 412-227-6950. ISSN No. 0091-3278. Suggested citation: Butts, Jeffrey A., Howard N. Snyder, Terrence A. Finnegan, Anne L. Aughenbaugh, and Rowen S. Poole. (1996). Juvenile Court Statistics 1994. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 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. ------------------------------ Foreword The philosophy of the juvenile court as an agent of reform is the foundation of our juvenile justice system. Serving as the crux of society's response to delinquency, the court plays a critical role in the lives of children. Juvenile courts mandate appropriate sanctions to ensure accountability and establish treatment plans in order to strengthen offenders' sense of responsibility and to protect the public. Clearly, the court is on the front line of the fight against violence. What issues face the juvenile court? Which types of offenders appear before it? Juvenile Court Statistics 1994 profiles more than 1.5 million delinquency cases and 126,000 status offender cases handled by juvenile courts during 1994. It clearly documents that the challenges facing the juvenile court are considerable -- and they are growing. From 1985 to 1994, the number of delinquency cases addressed by juvenile courts increased 41%. Juvenile offenses against persons nearly doubled (increasing 93%) in the same period. The primary purpose of this document is to serve as a reference guide to help policymakers, researchers, and the public to better understand the juvenile justice system. However, by documenting trends in our juvenile courts, it also enables us to plan for the future of the court and the programs and services it provides. In this way, it can significantly enhance our Nation's response to juvenile delinquency. Shay Bilchik Administrator Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention ------------------------------ Acknowledgments This report is a product of the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, which is funded by grants to the National Center for Juvenile Justice from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), U.S. Department of Justice. Joseph Moone is the OJJDP Program Manager for the project. The entire staff of the National Juvenile Court Data Archive contributes to the collection and processing of the data presented in this report: Anne L. Aughenbaugh, Manager of Data Collection Jeffrey A. Butts, Ph.D., Project Manager Terrence A. Finnegan, Senior Computer Programmer Stephanie Frontera, Research Assistant Intern Tricia Mitchell, Research Assistant Intern Eileen Poe-Yamagata, Research Analyst Rowen S. Poole, Computer Programmer Melissa Sickmund, Ph.D., Senior Research Analyst Howard N. Snyder, Ph.D., Project Director Dennis P. Sullivan, Data Analyst Nancy Tierney, Administrative Assistant Advisers to the Archive are Linda Bender, Pennsylvania Center for Juvenile Justice Training and Research; Alfred Blumstein, Carnegie Mellon University; Carol Burgess, Maricopa County Juvenile Court; David Farrington, Cambridge University; Daniel Kasprzyk, National Center for Education Statistics; and Malcolm Klein, University of Southern California. Their support and involvement are deeply appreciated. Juvenile Court Statistics would not be possible were it not for the State and local agencies that take the time each year to honor our requests for data and documentation. The following agencies contributed case-level data or court-level aggregate statistics for this report: Alabama -- Alabama Department of Youth Services. Alaska -- Alaska Court System. Arizona -- Arizona Supreme Court and the Maricopa County Juvenile Court Center. Arkansas -- Administrative Office of the Courts. California -- Judicial Council of California and the following county probation departments: Alameda, Kings, Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Stanislaus, and Ventura. Colorado -- Colorado Judicial Department. Connecticut -- Chief Court Administrator's Office. Delaware -- Family Court of the State of Delaware. District of Columbia -- District of Columbia Superior Court. Florida -- Department of Juvenile Justice. Georgia -- Administrative Office of the Courts, Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Hawaii -- The Judiciary, Administrative Office of the Courts. Idaho -- Administrative Office of the Courts. Illinois -- Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts, Probation Division, and the Circuit Court of Cook County, Juvenile Division. Indiana -- Division of State Court Administration. Iowa -- State Court Administrator. Kansas -- Kansas Bureau of Investigation. Kentucky -- Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts. Louisiana -- Judicial Council of the Supreme Court of Louisiana. Maine -- Administrative Office of the Courts. Maryland -- Department of Juvenile Justice. Massachusetts -- Administrative Office of the Courts. Michigan -- State Court Administrative Office. Minnesota -- Minnesota Supreme Court Information System. Mississippi -- Mississippi Department of Human Services, Division of Youth Services. Missouri -- Department of Social Services, Division of Youth Services. Montana -- Board of Crime Control and the Office of Court Administration. Nebraska -- Nebraska Crime Commission. New Hampshire -- Administrative Office of the Courts. New Jersey -- Administrative Office of the Courts. New Mexico -- Children, Youth and Families Department. New York -- Office of Court Administration and the State of New York, Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives. North Carolina -- Administrative Office of the Courts. North Dakota -- Supreme Court, Office of State Court Administrator. Ohio -- Supreme Court of Ohio and the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Division. Oregon -- Judicial Department. Pennsylvania -- Juvenile Court Judges' Commission. Rhode Island -- Administrative Office of State Courts and Rhode Island Family Court. South Carolina -- Department of Juvenile Justice. South Dakota -- Unified Judicial System. Tennessee -- Tennessee Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Texas -- Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. Utah -- Utah Administrative Office of the Courts. Vermont -- Supreme Court of Vermont, Office of the Court Administrator. Virginia -- State Administrative Office and Department of Family and Youth Services. Washington -- Office of the Administrator for the Courts. West Virginia -- Juvenile Justice Committee. Wisconsin -- Supreme Court of Wisconsin. Wyoming -- Supreme Court of Wyoming, Court Coordinator's Office. ------------------------------ Table of Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Preface Introduction National Estimates of Delinquency Cases National Estimates of Petitioned Status Offense Cases Methods Glossary of Terms Appendix: Reported Juvenile Court Cases Disposed in 1994 by County ------------------------------ Preface This is the 68th report in the Juvenile Court Statistics series. It describes the delinquency and status offense cases handled by U.S. juvenile courts between 1985 and 1994. National estimates of juvenile court caseloads in 1994 were based on analyses of approximately 762,000 automated case records contributed to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive by more than 1,400 courts with juvenile jurisdiction and analyses of court-level summary statistics supplied by more than 400 additional courts. Altogether, the courts contributing data for this report had jurisdiction over 67% of the juvenile population in 1994. The first Juvenile Court Statistics report was published in 1929 by the U.S. Department of Labor and described cases handled by 42 courts during 1927. During the next decade, Juvenile Court Statistics reports were based on statistical cards filled out for each delinquency, status offense, and dependency case handled by the courts participating in the reporting series. The Children's Bureau (within the Department of Labor) tabulated the information on each card, including the age, sex, and race of the youth; the reason for referral; the manner of dealing with the case; and the final disposition of the case. During the 1940's, however, the collection of case-level data was abandoned due to its high cost. From the 1940's until the mid-1970's, Juvenile Court Statistics reports were based on the simple, annual case counts reported to the Children's Bureau by participating courts. In 1957 the Children's Bureau initiated a new data collection design that enabled the Juvenile Court Statistics series to develop statistically sound, national estimates. The Children's Bureau, which had been transferred to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), developed a probability sample of more than 500 courts and asked each court in the sample to submit annual counts of delinquency, status offense, and dependency cases. Soon, however, this design proved difficult to sustain because some of the courts began to drop out of the sample. At the same time, a growing number of courts outside the sample began to compile comparable statistics. By the late 1960's, HEW ended the sample-based effort and returned to the policy of collecting annual case counts from any court able to provide them. However, the series continued to generate national estimates using data from these nonprobability samples. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) assumed responsibility for Juvenile Court Statistics following the passage of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. The National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) was awarded a grant in 1975 to continue the report series. Although agreeing to continue the procedures established by HEW in order to ensure reporting continuity, NCJJ also began to investigate methods of improving the quality and detail of national statistics. A critical innovation was made possible by the proliferation of computers during the 1970's. As NCJJ wrote to agencies across the country asking them to complete the annual juvenile court statistics form, some agencies offered to send the automated case-level data collected by their management information systems. Over a period of years, NCJJ learned to combine these automated records to produce a detailed national portrait of juvenile court activity -- the original objective of the Juvenile Court Statistics series. The project's transition from using annual case counts to analyzing automated case-level data was completed with the production of Juvenile Court Statistics 1984. For the first time since the 1930's, Juvenile Court Statistics contained detailed, case-level descriptions of the delinquency and status offense cases handled by U.S. juvenile courts. This case-level detail would continue to be the emphasis of the reporting series throughout the next decade. Thus, the content of Juvenile Court Statistics was once again consistent with the goals established by those who began this work more than 60 years earlier. Data Access The data used in this report are stored in the National Juvenile Court Data Archive at NCJJ in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Archive contains the most detailed information available on youth involved in the juvenile justice system and on the activities of U.S. juvenile courts. Designed to facilitate research on the juvenile justice system, the Archive's data files are available to policymakers, researchers, and students. In addition to national data files, State and local data can be provided to researchers. With the assistance of Archive staff, selected files can be merged for cross-jurisdictional and longitudinal analyses. Upon request, project staff are also available to perform special analyses of the Archive's data files. Researchers are encouraged to contact the Archive directly in order to explore the possible uses of Archive data files for their work. ------------------------------ Introduction This report describes delinquency and status offense cases handled by U.S. courts with juvenile jurisdiction between 1985 and 1994. Courts with juvenile jurisdiction may handle a variety of matters, including child abuse and neglect, traffic violations, child support, and adoptions. This report focuses on cases involving juveniles charged with law violations (delinquency or status offenses). Unit of Count In measuring the activity of juvenile courts, one could count the number of offenses referred; the number of cases referred; actual filings of offenses, cases, or petitions; the number of disposition hearings; or the number of youth handled. Each "unit of count" has its own merits and disadvantages. The unit of count used in Juvenile Court Statistics (JCS) is the number of "cases disposed." A "case" represents a youth processed by a juvenile court on a new referral regardless of the number of law violations contained in the referral. A youth charged with four burglaries in a single referral would represent a single case. A youth referred for three burglaries and referred again the following week on another burglary charge would represent two cases, even if the court eventually merged the two referrals for more efficient processing. The fact that a case is "disposed" means that a definite action was taken as the result of the referral -- i.e., a plan of treatment was selected or initiated. It does not mean a case was necessarily closed or terminated in the sense that all contact between the court and the youth ceased. For example, a case is considered to be disposed when the court orders probation, not when a term of probation supervision is completed. Coverage A basic question for this reporting series is what constitutes a referral to juvenile court. The answer depends in part on how each jurisdiction organizes its case screening function. In many communities all juvenile matters are first screened by an intake unit within the juvenile court. The intake unit determines whether the matter should be handled informally (i.e., diverted) or petitioned for formal handling. In data files from communities using this type of system, a delinquency or status offense case is defined as a court referral at the point of initial screening, regardless of whether it is handled formally or informally. In other communities the juvenile court is not involved in delinquency or status offense matters until another agency (e.g., the prosecutor's office or a social service agency) has first screened the case. In other words, the intake function is performed outside the court, where some matters are diverted to other agencies without the court ever handling them. Status offense cases, in particular, tend to be diverted from court processing in this manner. Since its inception, Juvenile Court Statistics has adapted to the changing structure of juvenile court processing nationwide. As court processing became more diverse, the reporting series broadened its definition of the juvenile court to incorporate other agencies that perform what can generically be considered juvenile court functions. In some communities data collection has expanded to include departments of youth services, child welfare agencies, and prosecutors' offices. In other communities, this expansion has not been possible. Therefore, while there is complete coverage of formally handled delinquency and status offense cases and adequate coverage of informally handled delinquency cases in this reporting series, the coverage of informally handled status offense cases is not sufficient to support the generation of national estimates. For this reason, JCS reports do not present national estimates of informally handled status offense cases. (Subnational analyses of these cases are available from the Archive.) Juvenile Court Processing Any attempt to describe juvenile court caseloads at the national level must devise a generic model of court processing to serve as a common framework. In order to analyze and present data about juvenile court activities in diverse jurisdictions, the Archive strives to fit the processing characteristics of all jurisdictions into the following general model: Intake. Referred cases are first screened by an intake department (either within or outside the court). The intake department may decide to dismiss the case for lack of legal sufficiency or to resolve the matter formally or informally. Informal (i.e., nonpetitioned) dispositions may include a voluntary referral to a social agency for services, informal probation, or the payment of fines or some form of voluntary restitution. Formally handled cases are petitioned and scheduled for an adjudicatory or transfer hearing. Transfer. The intake department may decide that a case should be removed from juvenile court and handled instead in criminal (adult) court. In such cases a petition is usually filed in juvenile court asking the juvenile court judge to waive jurisdiction over the case. The juvenile court judge decides whether the case merits criminal prosecution.(1) When a transfer request is denied, the matter is usually scheduled for an adjudicatory hearing in the juvenile court. Petitioning. If the intake department decides that a case should be handled formally within the juvenile court, a petition is filed, and the case is placed on the court calendar (or docket) for an adjudicatory hearing. A small number of petitions is dismissed for various reasons before the adjudicatory hearing is actually held. Adjudication. At the adjudicatory hearing, a youth may be adjudicated (judged) a delinquent or status offender, and the case would then proceed to a disposition hearing. Alternatively, a case can be dismissed or continued in contemplation of dismissal. In these cases, the court often recommends that the youth take some actions prior to the final adjudication decision, such as paying restitution or voluntarily attending drug counseling. Disposition. At the disposition hearing, the juvenile court judge determines the most appropriate sanction, generally after reviewing a predisposition report prepared by a probation department. The range of options available to a court typically includes commitment to an institution; placement in a group or foster home or other residential facility; probation (either regular or intensive supervision); referral to an outside agency, day treatment, or mental health program; or imposition of a fine, community service, or restitution order. Detention. A youth may be placed in a detention facility at different points as a case progresses through the juvenile justice system. Detention practices also vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. A judicial decision to detain or continue detention may occur before or after adjudication or disposition. This report includes only those detention actions that result in a youth being placed in a restrictive facility under court authority while awaiting the outcome of the court process. This report does not include detention decisions made by law enforcement officials prior to court intake or those occurring after the disposition of a case (e.g., temporary holding of a youth in a detention facility while awaiting availability of a court-ordered placement). Data Quality Juvenile Court Statistics relies on the secondary analysis of data originally compiled by juvenile courts or juvenile justice agencies to meet their own information and reporting needs. As a consequence, incoming data files are not uniform across jurisdictions. However, these data files are likely to be more detailed and accurate than data files compiled by local jurisdictions merely to comply with a mandated national reporting program. The heterogeneity of the contributed data files greatly increases the complexity of the Archive's data processing tasks. Contributing jurisdictions collect and report information using their own definitions and coding categories. Consequently, the detail reported in some data sets is not contained in others. Even when similar data elements are used, they may have inconsistent definitions or overlapping coding categories. The Archive restructures contributed data into standardized coding categories in order to combine information from multiple sources. The standardization process requires an intimate understanding of the development, structure, and content of each data set received. Codebooks and operation manuals are studied, data suppliers interviewed, and data files analyzed to maximize the understanding of each information system. Every attempt is made to ensure that only compatible information from the various data sets is used in standardized data files. While the heterogeneity of the data adds complexity to the development of a national data file, it has proven to be valuable in other applications. The diversity of the data stored in the National Juvenile Court Data Archive enables the data to support a wider range of research efforts than would a uniform, and probably more general, data collection form. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is limited by necessity to a small number of relatively broad offense codes. The UCR offense coding for larceny-theft combines shoplifting with a number of other larcenies. Thus, the data are useless for studies of shoplifting. In comparison, many of the Archive's data sets are sufficiently detailed to enable a researcher to distinguish offenses that are often combined in other reporting series -- shoplifting can be distinguished from other larcenies, joyriding from motor vehicle theft, and armed robbery from unarmed robbery. The diversity of these coding structures allows researchers to construct data sets that contain the detail demanded by their research designs. Validity of the Estimates The national estimates presented in this report were generated with data from a large nonprobability sample of juvenile courts. Consequently, statistical confidence in the estimates cannot be mathematically determined. Although statistical confidence would be greater if a probability sampling design were used, the cost of such an effort has long been considered prohibitive. Secondary analysis of available data is the best practical alternative for developing an understanding of the Nation's juvenile courts.(2) National estimates for 1994 are based on analyses of individual case records from more than 1,400 courts with jurisdiction over half of the U.S. juvenile population. The weighting procedures that generate national estimates from this sample control for many factors: the size of a community; the demographic composition of its youth population; the volume of cases referred to the reporting courts; the age, sex, and race of the youth involved; offense characteristics of the cases; the court's response to the cases (manner of handling, detention, adjudication, and disposition); and the nature of each court's jurisdictional responsibilities (i.e., upper age of original jurisdiction). The accuracy of the Archive's national estimates can be assessed by comparing them with estimates developed by other national data systems. For example, each JCS report provides an estimate of the number of referrals that juvenile courts received from law enforcement. On the other hand, the FBI's Crime in the United States reports provide the number of cases that law enforcement agencies referred to juvenile courts each year. FBI data are from the UCR series and are collected from a nonprobability sample of police agencies. For the past decade, referral trends reported in UCR and JCS data have been parallel. From 1985 to 1994, the overall difference between the number of juvenile court referrals estimated from UCR and JCS data was just 10%, a finding that supports the validity of both estimates.(3) Structure of the Report This report describes the delinquency and status offense cases handled by juvenile courts between 1985 and 1994. First, the report presents national estimates of petitioned and nonpetitioned delinquency cases handled by courts with juvenile jurisdiction. Next, national estimates of petitioned (formally processed) status offense cases are presented. Together, these sections provide a detailed national portrait of juvenile court cases, including the offenses involved, sources of referral, detention practices, and dispositions ordered. A brief description of the statistical procedure used to generate these estimates can be found in the Methods section. For readers wishing to know more about the estimation procedure, a companion volume to this report, Detailed Supplement to Juvenile Court Statistics 1994, is available upon request from the Archive. Readers are encouraged to consult the Glossary of Terms for definitions of key terms used throughout the report. Few terms in the field of juvenile justice have widely accepted definitions. The terminology used in this report has been carefully developed to communicate the findings of the work as precisely as possible without sacrificing their applicability to multiple jurisdictions. Finally, the appendix presents a complete list of the number of delinquency, status offense, and dependency cases handled by juvenile courts in 1994. Table notes indicate the source of the data and the unit of count. Because courts report their statistical data using various units of count (e.g., cases disposed, offenses referred, petitions), the reader is cautioned against making cross-jurisdictional comparisons before studying the accompanying footnotes. Other Sources of Juvenile Court Data JCS reports prior to 1993 contained a series of tables presenting national estimates for each year of report coverage and detailed current year data, as well as tables containing subnational, nonestimated data analyses on specific offenses. These tables are no longer included in Juvenile Court Statistics but may be obtained in the Detailed Supplement to Juvenile Court Statistics 1994, which is available directly from NCJJ. The national delinquency estimates presented in this report are also available in an easy-to-use software package, Easy Access to Juvenile Court Statistics 1990-1994. With the support of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, NCJJ distributes this package to facilitate independent analysis of Archive data while eliminating the need for statistical analysis software. All necessary data files as well as the NCJJ software are available on a single 32-inch diskette that can be easily installed on an IBM-compatible personal computer or network. To order a complimentary copy of Easy Access to Juvenile Court Statistics 1990-1994, contact the National Center for Juvenile Justice at 412-227- 6950. Notes (1) Mechanisms of transfer to criminal court vary by State. In some States a prosecutor has the authority to file juvenile cases that meet specified criteria directly in criminal court. This report, however, includes only cases that were transferred as a result of judicial waiver. (2) For more detailed analyses of the JCS national estimates and their accuracy, see: Jeffrey A. Butts and Howard N. Snyder. 1995. A Study to Assess the Validity of the National Estimates Developed for the Juvenile Court Statistics Series. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice. (3) This comparison was made possible by creating a national estimate of police dispositions to juvenile courts based upon the sample of jurisdictions that report police dispositions to the UCR program (see Crime in the United States, 1985þ1994 annual). ------------------------------ National Estimates of Delinquency Cases Counts and Trends In 1994, courts with juvenile jurisdiction handled an estimated 1,555,200 delinquency cases, representing a 5% increase over the 1993 caseload. Delinquency offenses are acts committed by juveniles that could result in criminal prosecution when committed by an adult. Between 1985 and 1994, the number of delinquency cases processed by U.S. juvenile courts increased 41%. The number of person offense cases increased 93% between 1985 and 1994, property offense cases increased 22%, drug offense cases increased 62%, and public order offense cases grew 50%. Compared with 1985, juvenile courts in 1994 handled 144% more criminal homicide cases, 25% more rape cases, 53% more robbery cases, 134% more aggravated assault cases, and 91% more simple assault cases. During the same time period, juvenile courts saw their weapons violations caseload increase 156% and cases involving motor vehicle theft climb 69%. Examining the caseloads of juvenile courts using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime indexes indicates that juvenile courts handled substantially more Violent Crime Index offense cases in 1994 than in 1985 (98%), while cases involving Property Crime Index offenses increased 17%.(1) The increases in juvenile court cases parallel the increases in arrests of persons under the age of 18 as reported by the FBI. Between 1985 and 1994, the number of arrests involving persons under the age of 18 charged with Violent Crime Index offenses increased 75%, while arrests of youth for Property Crime Index offenses increased 11%. (See Crime in the United States 1994.) According to the FBI, the number of juvenile arrests for homicide increased 150% between 1985 and 1994 and 15% between 1990 and 1994, increases that closely correspond to the increases in juvenile court cases involving homicide charges. The offense profile of juvenile court caseloads changed somewhat between 1985 and 1994. The relative proportion of person offenses increased, while property offenses declined slightly. A person offense such as robbery or assault was the most serious charge in 22% of delinquency cases in 1994 compared with 16% in 1985. A property offense such as shoplifting, burglary, or vandalism was the most serious charge in 52% of the delinquency cases handled by juvenile courts in 1994 versus 60% in 1985. The proportion of drug law violations and public order offenses remained relatively unchanged between 1985 and 1994. Drug law violations, such as possession or sale of controlled substances, accounted for 8% of delinquency cases in 1994, up slightly from 1990 (5%) but nearly the same as the proportion in 1985 (7%). In 1994, juvenile courts processed 56.1 delinquency cases for every 1,000 juveniles who resided in the United States and were at risk of referral -- those age 10 or older who were under the jurisdiction of a juvenile court.(2) Analysis of this case rate permits comparisons of juvenile court activity over time while controlling for differences in the population at risk of referral to the juvenile court. The total delinquency case rate was 33% greater in 1994 than in 1985.(3) Between 1990 and 1994, the total delinquency case rate grew 11%. Case rates increased in all offense categories between 1985 and 1994. The case rate for person offenses climbed 83%, the property case rate increased 16%, the rate of drug cases grew 54%, and the rate of public order offense cases increased 42%. Between 1990 and 1994, the case rate for property offenses declined slightly (1%) while the rates for other offense categories were substantially greater. Source of Referral Delinquency cases can be referred to court intake by a number of sources, including law enforcement agencies, social service agencies, schools, parents, probation officers, and victims. However, law enforcement agencies are traditionally the source of most delinquency referrals. In 1994, for example, 86% of delinquency cases were referred to courts by law enforcement. This was slightly higher than in 1985 (82%). Variations in referral source existed across the four major offense categories. In 1994, 94% of drug law violation cases were referred by law enforcement agencies, as were 91% of property cases and 86% of person offense cases. Only 69% of public order offense cases were referred by law enforcement sources, perhaps because this offense category contains probation violations and contempt of court cases that are referred most often by court personnel. Detention Juvenile courts sometimes hold youth in secure detention facilities during court processing. Depending on the State's detention laws, the court may decide detention is necessary to protect the community from a juvenile's behavior, to ensure a juvenile's appearance at subsequent court hearings, or to secure the juvenile's own safety. Juveniles were held in detention facilities at some point between referral to court intake and case disposition in 21% of all delinquency cases disposed in 1994. Cases involving property offenses were least likely to involve detention in 1994, while those involving drug offenses were most likely to involve detention. In 1994, 17% of property offense cases involved detention compared with 24% of person offense cases, 24% of public order offense cases, and 28% of drug cases. The probability of detention for delinquency cases changed very little between 1985 and 1994. The use of detention increased from 20% to 23% of all cases between 1985 and 1990, and then declined to 21% in 1994. The same pattern was seen in three of the four major offense categories (person, property, and public order offenses). The use of detention for drug law violation cases also decreased between 1990 and 1994, but unlike the other offense categories, the use of detention for drug offense cases remained substantially higher in 1994 than in 1985 (28% versus 21%). The number of delinquency cases in which juveniles were detained increased 43% between 1985 and 1994, rising from 224,500 to 321,200. Increases occurred in all offense categories, with drug offense cases showing the greatest increase. Between 1985 and 1994, the number of drug offense cases in which the youth was detained increased 111%. There was a 90% increase among person offense cases, 19% in property offense cases, and 36% in public order offense cases. The number of property offense cases that involved detention declined 5% between 1990 and 1994. Although detention was least likely in property offense cases in 1994, they accounted for 42% of all delinquency cases involving detention because they represented the largest share of juvenile court caseloads. Person offense cases accounted for 25% of cases involving detention, public order offense cases accounted for 22%, and drug law violation cases accounted for 10%. Between 1985 and 1994, the offense characteristics of delinquency cases involving detention changed somewhat, with person offenses and drug law violations accounting for larger proportions of detentions, and property offenses representing a smaller share in 1994 than in 1985 (42% compared with 50%). Intake Decision More than half (55%) of the delinquency cases disposed by juvenile courts in 1994 were processed formally. Formal processing involves the filing of a petition requesting an adjudicatory or transfer hearing. Informal cases, on the other hand, are handled without a petition. Among informally handled (nonpetitioned) delinquency cases, half (50%) were dismissed by the court. Most of the remainder resulted in voluntary probation (28%) or other dispositions (22%), but a small number (1%) involved voluntary out-of-home placements. Juvenile courts handled half (52%) of all property offense cases formally in 1994. Formal processing was even more likely for person offense cases (59%), drug law violation cases (61%), and public order offense cases (57%). As a result of this differential handling, formally processed cases in 1994 involved a higher proportion of person, drug, and public order offenses and a lower proportion of property offense cases when compared with the informally handled delinquency caseload. Intake decisions varied among each of the four major offense categories. A detailed analysis of referral offenses showed that the likelihood of formal handling was greater for more serious offenses within the same general offense category. In 1994, for example, 64% of aggravated assault cases but only 49% of simple assault cases were handled formally. Similarly, more than 70% of burglary and motor vehicle theft cases were handled formally by juvenile courts, compared with 42% of larceny-theft cases and 45% of cases in which vandalism was the most serious charge. The likelihood of formal processing for delinquency referrals increased between 1985 and 1994, rising from 46% to 55%. The greatest relative increases were seen in the proportion of drug offense cases handled formally (from 43% in 1985 to 61% in 1994) and public order offense cases (from 45% to 57%). As a result of the increase in the number of cases referred to juvenile court intake and the greater likelihood of petitioning, the number of formally processed delinquency cases increased 69% between 1985 and 1994, rising from 505,400 to 855,200. The single largest increase was in weapon violation cases, with juvenile courts formally processing 249% more weapons cases in 1994 than in 1985. Other large increases were seen in formally handled homicide cases (159%), aggravated assault cases (143%), and cases involving drug law violations (128%). Judicial Decision and Disposition Transfer One of the first decisions made at intake is determining whether a case should be processed in the criminal (adult) justice system rather than in the juvenile court. The mechanisms used to transfer responsibility for a case to the criminal court vary by State. In some cases a prosecutor may have the authority to file juvenile cases directly in criminal court. In other cases, State law may require a judicial waiver, in which a juvenile court judge authorizes transfer requests. In most instances when a transfer request is denied, the case is then scheduled for an adjudicatory hearing in juvenile court. The data described in this report represent only cases that were transferred to criminal court by judicial waiver. Criminal court transfers represented 1.4% of all petitioned delinquency cases in 1994. The cases most likely to be transferred in 1994 were those involving person offenses (2.7%). This was true in 1985 as well. In 1990, however, drug offense cases were more likely to be transferred than person offense cases (2.7% versus 2.0%). Just 1.1% of cases involving property offenses were transferred to criminal court in 1994, which was down slightly from 1.3% in 1985. The number of delinquency cases transferred to criminal court grew 71% between 1985 and 1994. In 1994, the largest group of transferred cases involved person offenses, which accounted for more than 2 in 5 cases transferred to criminal court. Between 1985 and 1994 the number of transferred drug offense cases increased far more (308%) than did transfers of any other type of case (for example, 125% among person offense cases and 66% among property offense cases). However, all of the increase in transferred drug cases occurred between 1985 and 1990. The offense profile of cases transferred to criminal court changed considerably between 1985 and 1994. The proportion of all transferred delinquency cases that involved a property offense as the most serious charge declined from 54% in 1985 to 37% in 1994. The proportion of person offenses among transferred cases grew from 33% to 44%. Drug offense cases increased from 5% of all transfers to 11% between 1985 and 1994. Together, person offenses and drug law violations increased from 38% of all transfers in 1985 to 55% of transfers in 1994. The number of transferred person offense cases more than doubled between 1985 and 1994, increasing from 2,400 to 5,400 cases. Analyzing differences in transferred delinquency cases by comparing 1985 and 1994 alone conceals a more differentiated trend seen during the 10-year period. The marked increase in person offense cases transferred to criminal court did not begin until 1989. A corresponding increase in the number of transferred drug offense cases, on the other hand, ended after 1991. Adjudication A youth may be adjudicated delinquent after admitting to the charges in a case or after the court finds sufficient evidence to judge the youth a delinquent. Juveniles were adjudicated delinquent by the court in 58% of all formally processed delinquency cases in 1994. Person offense cases were the least likely cases to be adjudicated. Among formally handled delinquency cases in 1994, 54% of person offense cases were adjudicated, as were 58% of property offense cases, 60% of drug law violation cases, and 60% of public order offense cases. The likelihood of adjudication for petitioned delinquency cases decreased from 66% to 58% between 1985 and 1994. The probability of adjudication decreased from 58% to 54% for person offense cases, from 67% to 58% for property offense cases, from 70% to 60% for drug cases, and from 69% to 60% for public order offense cases. Although adjudications declined as a percentage of formally handled delinquency cases between 1985 and 1994, the use of formal processing itself increased considerably during that time. When adjudications and transfers to criminal court are measured as a proportion of all delinquency cases, the practices of juvenile courts are found to have changed very little between 1985 and 1994. Disposition In dispositional hearings, juvenile court judges must determine the most appropriate sanction for delinquent youth, generally after reviewing reports from the probation department. The range of dispositional options may include commitment to an institution or another residential facility, probation, or a variety of other dispositions, such as referral to an outside agency or treatment program, fines, community service, or restitution. In more than half (53%) of all adjudicated delinquency cases in 1994, the juvenile was placed on formal probation. More than one-quarter (29%) of adjudicated cases resulted in the youth being placed outside the home in a residential facility.(4) In 15% of adjudicated delinquency cases, the court ordered the juvenile to pay restitution or a fine, to participate in some form of community service, or to enter a treatment or counseling program -- dispositions with minimal continuing supervision by probation staff. In a relatively small number of cases (3%), the juvenile was adjudicated, but the case was then dismissed or the youth was otherwise released. In 41% of all petitioned delinquency cases in 1994, the youth was not subsequently adjudicated. Most of these cases (61%) were dismissed by the court. However, in 22% of nonadjudicated cases the youth agreed to some form of probation, in 15% of the cases the youth were given other dispositions, and 2% of all nonadjudicated delinquency cases resulted in voluntary out-of-home placements. Out-of-Home Placement. Adjudicated juveniles were ordered to out-of-home placements in 141,300 delinquency cases in 1994 -- 29% of all adjudicated cases. Juveniles charged with property offenses were least likely to be placed outside the home in 1994 (25%). Placement was used more frequently in adjudicated person offense cases (31%), drug law violation cases (28%), and public order offense cases (33%). The relatively high rate of placement among public order offense cases may be related to the fact that these cases include escapes from institutions and weapons offenses as well as probation and parole violations. The relative use of out-of-home placements declined between 1990 and 1994 for all four of the major offense categories. Still, the number of adjudicated delinquency cases resulting in out-of-home placement increased 15% between 1990 and 1994, and 51% since 1985. The increase in out-of-home placements was greatest for adjudicated person offense cases between 1990 and 1994 (32%). Between 1985 and 1994, however, placements increased more for drug offense cases than for person offense cases (141% versus 97%). Property offense cases in which youth were adjudicated delinquent and placed outside the home increased 25%, while out-of-home placements increased 52% in public order offense cases. In 1994, 44% of all adjudicated cases that resulted in out-of-home placement involved property offenses, 24% involved person offenses, 24% involved public order offenses, and 9% involved drug law violations. Between 1985 and 1994, the offense profile of the juveniles involved in out-of-home placement cases changed somewhat. The proportion of out-of-home placement cases that involved person offenses increased, while the proportion involving property offenses declined. Formal Probation. Probation was the most restrictive disposition used in 264,600 adjudicated delinquency cases in 1994 -- 53% of all such cases handled by juvenile courts. Juvenile courts ordered formal probation in 55% of adjudicated cases involving property offenses, 54% of those involving person offenses, 52% involving drug law violations, and 49% involving public order offenses. With the exception of drug offense cases, the likelihood of formal probation decreased only slightly for adjudicated delinquency cases between 1985 and 1994. The use of probation decreased from 56% to 54% for person offense cases, from 58% to 55% for property offense cases, and from 51% to 49% for public order offense cases. For drug violations, on the other hand, the use of probation fell from 62% to 52% in adjudicated cases. The number of adjudicated cases that resulted in a most restrictive disposition of formal probation increased 41% between 1985 and 1994. The number of person offense cases resulting in formal probation increased 88%, property offense cases increased 20%, while those involving drug offenses increased 63%. Just more than half (51%) of the delinquency cases that resulted in formal probation in 1994 involved property offenses, 22% involved person offenses, 19% involved public order offenses, and 9% involved drug law violations. The offense characteristics of cases resulting in formal probation changed somewhat between 1985 and 1994, with an increase in the proportion of cases involving person offenses and a decrease in the proportion of cases involving property offenses. Age at Referral In 1994, 61% of juvenile delinquency cases involved youth who were age 15 or younger at the time of referral compared with 60% in 1990. In 1994, juveniles age 15 or younger were responsible for 64% of person offense cases, 64% of property offense cases, 42% of drug law violation cases, and 55% of public order offense cases. Compared with the delinquency caseload involving older juveniles, the caseload of youth age 15 or younger had a larger proportion of property offense cases and smaller proportions of drug and public order offense cases. Property offense cases accounted for 61% of the cases involving youth age 15 or younger compared with 53% of cases involving youth age 16 or older. Drug law violations made up 4% of the cases of younger juveniles but 8% of cases involving youth age 16 or older. The rate of delinquency cases was associated with the age of juveniles. For example, the Nation's juvenile courts disposed 104.6 delinquency cases involving 17-year-olds for every 1,000 17-year-olds at risk of referral in 1994. Among 16-year-olds, however, there were 112.4 cases disposed for every 1,000 youth at risk. The case rate for 16-year-olds was 58% greater than the rate for 14-year-olds, while the rate for 14-year-olds was more than 3 times the rate for 12-year-olds. Between 1985 and 1994, delinquency case rates increased 30% or more for every age group between 13 and 17. Within individual offense categories, variations occurred in the pattern of age-specific case rates in 1994. Case rates increased continuously with age for drug law violations, while the rates for other offenses peaked with the 16-year-old age group and then declined slightly. Drug law violation case rates showed the sharpest increases after age 13. The case rate for drug offenses for 17-year-old juveniles (13.9 per 1,000) was 718% greater than the corresponding case rate for 13-year-olds (1.7 per 1,000). For person offenses, the 17-year-old case rate was 85% greater than the 13-year-old case rate. For property offense cases, the difference was 81%, while for public order offenses the case rate for 17-year-olds was more than three times the rate for 13-year-olds. Detention Youth under age 16 accounted for 57% of the cases that involved detention in 1994, while those under age 14 accounted for 16%. The age profile of delinquency cases that involved detention changed only slightly between 1985 and 1994. The proportion of detention cases that involved youth under age 16 rose from 55% in 1985 to 57% in 1994. Detention was used more frequently for older juveniles in 1994. Detention was used in 14% of delinquency cases involving 12-year-olds, 21% of cases involving 14-year-olds, and 23% of those involving 16-year-olds. In general, the likelihood of detention increased for each successive age group through age 15 across all offense categories. Detention was less likely for cases involving 17-year-olds than for cases involving 16-year-olds regardless of offense. Intake Decision Delinquency cases involving juveniles age 16 and older were more likely to be handled formally than cases involving younger youth. Overall, 52% of delinquency cases involving youth age 15 and younger were processed with the filing of a petition compared with 60% of cases involving older youth. The likelihood of formal handling increased between 1985 and 1994 for both younger and older youth in all offense categories. Judicial Decision and Disposition The probability of transfer to criminal court was substantially greater for cases involving older juveniles. In 1994, 2.9% of all formally processed delinquency cases involving juveniles age 16 or older were transferred to criminal court compared with 0.3% of cases involving younger juveniles. Overall, the probability of transfer was relatively unchanged between 1985 and 1994 for both younger and older juveniles. Transfers increased for person offense cases and drug offense cases, however, among younger as well as older youth. Once petitioned, juveniles age 15 and younger were slightly more likely to be adjudicated than were older youth (59% versus 56% in 1994). This pattern was found in all four offense categories. Both age groups reflected the general decline between 1985 and 1994 in the proportion of formally handled cases that resulted in adjudication. The percentage of petitioned delinquency cases resulting in adjudication declined from 67% to 59% among younger youth and from 64% to 56% among older youth. The likelihood of adjudication was lower for both age groups in all offense categories. The proportion of adjudicated cases placed outside the home was just under 30% for both age groups. Compared with 1985, the use of placement for adjudicated delinquency cases was relatively unchanged in 1994 for person offense and property offense cases for both younger and older youth. However, the use of placement for drug offense cases increased between 1985 and 1994. Among all offense categories in both age groups, the use of placement increased between 1985 and 1990 and then fell between 1990 and 1994. Once adjudicated, the likelihood that a juvenile court would place a delinquent youth on formal probation was slightly greater for younger youth. In 1994, 55% of adjudicated cases involving younger youth resulted in probation compared with 51% of cases involving older youth. With the exception of drug law violation cases, changes in the use of probation between 1985 and 1994 were relatively minor for both age groups. The use of probation for drug cases in 1994 was considerably lower than in 1985 for both younger and older youth. Sex Males were involved in 79% of the delinquency cases handled by juvenile courts in 1994. Male juveniles were responsible for 77% of person offense cases, 79% of property offense cases, 86% of drug law violation cases, and 79% of public order offense cases. The offense characteristics of the male and female juvenile court caseloads were similar, although cases involving female juveniles were slightly less likely to involve drug law violations (5% compared with 8%) and more likely to involve person offenses (24% versus 21%). Between 1985 and 1994, the volume of delinquency cases involving males increased 38%, while the number of cases involving females increased 54%. Both males and females showed considerable growth in the number of person offense cases (85% and 124%, respectively). Among males, the next largest increase was in drug offense cases (up 70% between 1985 and 1994). Among females, on the other hand, the next largest increase was in public order offense cases (up 45%). In 1994, the delinquency case rate for males was more than 3 times greater than the rate for females -- 86.5 compared with 24.0 cases per 1,000 youth at risk. In 1985, however, the male case rate was 4 times greater. Between 1985 and 1994, the relative change in delinquency case rates was greater for females than for males in both person and property offense cases. The per capita rate of person offense cases involving females increased 113%, compared with 75% for males. The rate of property offense cases increased 33% for females while growing 12% for males. On the other hand, the rate of drug offense cases increased just 20% among females while growing 61% among males. In 1994, both male and female delinquency case rates increased through age 16, before declining among 17-year-olds. Male case rates increased continuously with age in two of the four delinquency offense categories -- drug law violations and public order. The drug offense case rate for females also increased continuously through age 17. Detention Male juveniles charged with delinquency offenses were more likely than females to be held in secure facilities while awaiting court disposition. Overall, 22% of male delinquency cases involved detention in 1994 compared with 16% of cases involving females. Detention was used more often for cases involving male juveniles, regardless of the major offense category that was the most serious charge in the case. Males and females were least likely to be detained in cases involving property offenses (18% and 12%, respectively). Males were most likely to be detained in drug offense cases (29%), while the highest use of detention in cases involving females occurred in public order offense cases (22%). Between 1985 and 1994, changes in the likelihood of detention were relatively comparable for males and females. In most offense categories, the use of detention increased somewhat between 1985 and 1990 and then returned to previous levels in 1994. The two exceptions were the use of detention for drug offense cases involving males, which remained considerably higher in 1994 than in 1985, and detention of public order offense cases involving females, which declined between 1985 and 1990 as well as between 1990 and 1994. Intake Decision Juvenile courts were less likely to use formal processing in delinquency cases involving females (45%) than in cases involving males (57%). Between 1985 and 1994, the likelihood of formal handling increased for both males and females in all offense categories. Females were most likely to be petitioned for cases involving public order offenses in 1994 (53%), while cases involving males were petitioned most often for drug law violations (63%). Judicial Decision and Disposition Delinquency cases involving males were 4 times more likely to be transferred to criminal court than were cases involving females. In 1994, 1.7% of formally processed cases involving males were transferred to criminal court compared with 0.4% of cases involving females. Both male and female cases were generally as likely to be transferred to criminal court in 1994 as they had been in 1985. For males, cases involving person offenses were more likely to be transferred in 1994 than in 1985 (3.3% compared with 2.9%). The likelihood of transfer for person offense cases involving females declined during the same period. Cases involving male juveniles were more likely than cases involving females to be adjudicated once petitioned (59% compared with 52%). This pattern was found in all four offense categories. For both males and females, the probability of adjudication was greatest in cases involving public order offenses (61% and 57%, respectively). The probability of adjudication decreased between 1985 and 1994 for formally handled cases involving males (from 66% to 59%) as well as females (from 62% to 52%). The use of adjudication decreased among all offense categories for both sexes. Once adjudicated, cases involving male delinquents were more likely than those involving females to result in out-of-home placement in 1994. Placement was the most restrictive disposition in 30% of adjudicated cases involving males and 23% of those involving females. Between 1985 and 1994, the use of placement increased slightly for males and declined slightly for females. The use of formal probation for adjudicated males and females did not change substantially between 1985 and 1994. The likelihood of probation decreased slightly for cases involving males (from 56% to 53%) and increased slightly for females (from 57% to 58%). Race White youth accounted for 64% of the delinquency cases disposed by juvenile courts in 1994.(5) White youth were responsible for 57% of person offense cases, 68% of property offense cases, 61% of drug law violation cases, and 64% of public order cases. Black youth were responsible for 32% of all delinquency cases, 40% of person offense cases, 28% of property cases, 37% of drug cases, and 33% of public order cases. Juveniles of other races accounted for 4% of all delinquency cases in 1994 and comparable proportions of each of the four major offense categories. For all racial groups, a property offense was the most common charge involved in delinquency cases disposed in 1994. Property offenses accounted for 55% of all cases involving white youth, 45% of those involving black youth, and 59% of cases involving youth of other races. In more than one-quarter (27%) of cases involving blacks, the youth was charged with a person offense compared with 19% of cases involving white youth and 19% of cases involving youth of other races. Cases involving black youth contained a slightly larger proportion of drug law violations (9%) than cases involving either white youth (7%) or those of other races (4%). The number of cases involving white youth increased 26% between 1985 and 1994, while cases involving black youth increased 78%, and the number of cases involving youth of other races increased 94%. Trends differed somewhat within the four offense categories. The number of person offense cases increased markedly for all racial groups between 1985 and 1994. Among black youth, however, the number of cases involving drug charges or public order offenses increased relatively more than cases involving person offenses. Delinquency case rates differed substantially by race. The total case rate for black juveniles in 1994 (119.4 cases disposed for every 1,000 youth at risk) was more than twice the rate for white juveniles (45.2) or youth of other races (39.6). The person offense and drug law violation case rates among black youth were at least three times greater than the corresponding rates for white youth and youth of other races. In all offense categories, the case rate for juveniles of other races was lower than the equivalent rate for either black or white juveniles. The delinquency case rates for all racial groups increased continuously with age from ages 10 to 16, and then declined slightly at age 17. Age-related increases in delinquency case rates occurred within each of the four offense categories. For example, the person offense case rate for white juveniles increased from 7.4 cases per 1,000 13-year-olds at risk to 16.6 cases per 1,000 16-year-olds. For black juveniles, the person offense case rate grew from 30.5 at age 13 to 62.3 at age 16, before dropping slightly to 56.6 cases per 1,000 at age 17. Detention In 1994, 17% of delinquency cases involving white juveniles included detention at some point between referral and disposition. Among cases involving black juveniles and those of other races, the figures were 28% and 22%, respectively. The largest difference in detention use was found among cases involving drug law violations. Detention was used in 18% of drug cases involving white juveniles, 44% of cases involving blacks, and 21% of cases involving youth of other races. In all racial groups, the likelihood of detention generally increased between 1985 and 1990 and declined slightly between 1990 and 1994. Substantial changes occurred in the use of detention for cases involving drug law violations. Between 1990 and 1994, the use of detention decreased for drug cases involving white juveniles (from 27% to 18%), black juveniles (from 51% to 44%), and youth of other races (from 34% to 21%). Intake Decision Delinquency cases involving black juveniles were more likely to be handled formally in 1994 than were cases involving white youth or youth of other races. Formal handling was used in 61% of delinquency cases involving black juveniles, 52% of cases involving white juveniles, and 54% of cases involving juveniles of other races. Racial differences in the likelihood of formal handling were greatest in drug law violation cases. In 1994, 52% of drug cases involving white juveniles and 49% of those involving juveniles of other races were handled by formal petition compared with 77% of drug cases involving black youth. Between 1985 and 1994, the likelihood of formal petitioning increased for all racial groups. Judicial Decision and Disposition Delinquency cases involving white juveniles and those of other races were somewhat less likely to be transferred to criminal court than were cases involving black youth. In 1994, 1.9% of formally processed cases involving black juveniles were transferred to criminal court compared with 1.2% of cases involving whites and 1.5% of those involving youth of other races. Among both whites and blacks, the use of criminal court transfer for cases involving drug offenses increased between 1985 and 1990 then declined between 1990 and 1994. Person offense cases involving white youth were as likely to be transferred in 1994 as in 1985 (2.2%), but the use of transfer for person offense cases involving black youth rose from 2.9% in 1985 to 3.4% in 1994. Compared with 1985, property offense cases made up a smaller proportion of all transferred cases involving either white or black juveniles in 1994. On the other hand, person offense cases accounted for a growing proportion of transferred cases involving either white youth (growing from 26% to 37%) or black youth (43% in 1985 compared with 50% in 1994). In 1994 petitioned cases involving black juveniles were slightly less likely to be adjudicated (54%) than were cases involving white juveniles (60%) or juveniles of other races (65%). Cases involving black juveniles were less likely to be adjudicated in all four offense categories. The likelihood of adjudication for petitioned delinquency cases declined slightly between 1985 and 1994 for all racial groups. In drug cases, for example, the use of adjudication decreased for cases involving white youth (from 71% to 61%), black youth (from 67% to 57%), and youth of other races (from 78% to 71%). Adjudicated cases involving white youth were less likely to result in out-of-home placement in 1994 (25%) than cases involving black youth (34%) or youth of other races (33%). Compared with 1985, the use of out-of-home placement was also lower for cases involving white youth and somewhat greater for cases involving black youth or youth of other races. Changes in the likelihood of out-of-home placement varied slightly across the four major offense categories. Adjudicated delinquency cases involving white juveniles were more likely than those involving either black juveniles or youth of other races to result in a disposition of formal probation. In 1994, 55% of adjudicated cases involving white youth were placed on formal probation compared with 52% of those involving black youth and 46% of cases involving youth of other races. Between 1985 and 1994, the use of formal probation declined for cases involving either black youth or youth of other races, but remained relatively unchanged for cases involving white youth. Notes (1) The annual series of reports from the FBI, Crime in the United States, provides information on arrests in offense categories that have become part of the common vocabulary of criminal justice statistics. The Crime in the United States series tracks changes in the general nature of arrests through the use of two indexes, the Violent Crime Index and the Property Crime Index. While not containing all violent or all property offenses, the indexes serve as a barometer of the changing nature of criminal activity in the United States. (2) The upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction is defined by statute in each State. See the Glossary of Terms for a more detailed discussion on upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction. The case rates presented in this report control for State variations in youth population at risk of referral to juvenile court. (3) Percentage change in the number of cases disposed versus case rates may not be equal due to the changing size of the juvenile population. (4) Most youth in out-of-home placements are also technically on formal probation. For this report, however, case disposition is characterized by the most severe sanction. Consequently, cases resulting in an out-of-home placement are not included in the formal probation group. (5) In 1994, whites made up approximately 80% of the national population of youth at risk of referral to a juvenile court. Nearly all youth of Hispanic ethnicity are included in the white category. ----------------------------------- National Estimates of Petitioned Status Offense Cases Counts and Trends Status offenses are acts which are illegal only because the person committing them is a juvenile. In other words, an adult cannot be arrested for status offenses. The four major status offense categories used in this report are runaway, truancy, un-governability (also known as incorrigibility), and underage liquor law violations (e.g., minor in possession of alcohol, underage drinking).(1) In 1994, U.S. courts with juvenile jurisdiction petitioned and formally disposed an estimated 126,900 status offense cases.(2) This number was 66% more than the number of petitioned status offense cases handled in 1985. Petitioned runaway cases increased 25% between 1985 and 1994. The number of truancy cases was 67% higher in 1994 than in 1985 and status liquor offenses climbed 117%. Ungovernability cases, on the other hand, decreased 7% between 1985 and 1994, although the 1994 caseload was 25% greater than in 1990. The Nation's juvenile courts processed 4.6 petitioned status offense cases for every 1,000 youth at risk of referral in 1994. The total case rate was 58% higher in 1994 than in 1985. The rate for runaway cases increased 18%, truancy grew 58%, and the rate of status liquor violations cases increased 105%. The rate for ungovernability cases declined 12% since 1985. The majority of formally handled status offense cases in 1994 involved either charges of truancy (29%) or status liquor law violations (27%). Other cases involved runaway (17%), ungovernability (12%), or other miscellaneous status offenses (16%). Compared with 1985, the Nation's juvenile courts handled proportionately fewer runaway and ungovernability cases in 1994 and more liquor law violation cases. Source of Referral Law enforcement agencies referred 44% of the petitioned status offense cases disposed by juvenile courts in 1994. The source of referral varied substantially with the nature of the offense. Law enforcement agencies referred 94% of formally processed status liquor law violation cases to juvenile court but only 40% of runaway cases, 9% of truancy cases, and 10% of ungovernability cases. Detention In 7% of the formally processed status offense cases disposed by juvenile courts in 1994, the juvenile was held in a detention facility at some point between referral to court and case disposition. Detention was used in 15% of runaway cases, 7% of ungovernability cases, 4% of status liquor law violations, and 2% of cases involving truancy charges. Of the estimated 9,000 petitioned status offense cases that involved detention in 1994, 36% were runaway cases, 13% were liquor law violation cases, and 13% were ungovernability cases. The number of formal status offense cases that involved detention was 14% greater in 1994 than in 1990, but 33% lower than the number of detention cases in 1985. The largest declines in status offense cases involving detention since 1985 were in ungovernable cases (68%) and those involving charges of truancy (57%). Judicial Decision and Disposition Adjudication In 1994, 54% of petitioned status offense cases handled by juvenile courts resulted in formal adjudication.(3) Adjudication was most common in ungovernability and liquor law violation cases. Runaway cases were the least likely to be adjudicated. The proportion of petitioned status offense cases resulting in adjudication declined between 1985 and 1994. The smallest relative decline in adjudication was found among status offense cases involving runaway youth; 45% of these cases were adjudicated in 1994 compared with 53% in 1985. Disposition The majority (57%) of adjudicated status offense cases in 1994 resulted in probation. Overall, 16% of adjudicated cases resulted in the youth being placed outside the home in a residential facility, and 25% resulted in other dispositions, including restitution or fines, participation in some form of community service, or enrollment in a treatment or counseling program. In a small number of adjudicated cases (2%), the case was dismissed, or the youth was otherwise released. Out-of-Home Placement. The dispositions used in adjudicated status offense cases varied according to the most serious offense involved in the case. Adjudicated cases involving charges of ungovernability or runaway were the most likely to result in out-of-home placement in 1995. Residential placement was far less common for adjudicated cases involving status liquor law violations or truancy. The likelihood of out-of-home placement for status offense cases in general decreased between 1985 and 1994 (from 23% to 16%). However, placements for runaway and truancy cases increased between 1990 and 1994. The number of adjudicated status offense cases that resulted in out-of-home placement declined 4% between 1985 and 1994. The number of runaway, truancy, and ungovernability cases resulting in out-of-home placement decreased substantially during the 10-year period, while the number of status liquor law violation cases ending in placement increased 59%. Of all formally handled status offense cases that involved out-of-home placement in 1994, 25% were referred to court for running away, 23% for ungovernability, 21% for truancy, and 11% for status liquor law violations. Formal Probation. In 1994, an order of formal probation was most likely in adjudicated truancy cases (78%) and least likely (45%) in adjudicated liquor law violation cases. The proportion of cases that resulted in formal probation increased in three of the four major status offense categories between 1985 and 1994. The total number of adjudicated status offense cases that resulted in formal probation increased 39% between 1985 and 1994. The number of formal probation cases involving runaway charges increased 14%, those involving truancy grew 47%, and liquor law violation cases increased 69%. In contrast, probation cases involving ungovernability declined 8% between 1985 and 1994. In 1994, 40% of the adjudicated status offense cases that resulted in probation involved truancy as the most serious charge, 22% involved liquor law violations, 15% involved ungovernability, and 13% involved running away. Compared with the 1985 caseload, status offense cases resulting in formal probation in 1994 involved slightly more truancy charges and liquor law violations, and slightly fewer charges of runaway and ungovernability. Age at Referral Juveniles age 15 or younger at the time of court referral accounted for 57% of formally processed status offense cases disposed by courts in 1994 compared with 69% in 1985. Juveniles under age 16 were involved in 76% of truancy cases, 70% of ungovernability cases, 66% of runaway cases, and 24% of status liquor law violations. The offense profile of status offense cases reflects age-related behavior differences. Truancy was charged in 38% of cases involving younger youth compared with 16% of cases involving older youth. Liquor law violations were charged in 46% of cases involving older youth but only 11% of cases involving younger juveniles. Petitioned status offense case rates increased continuously with the age of juveniles. In 1994, juvenile courts processed 3.2 petitioned status offense cases involving 13-year-old juveniles for every 1,000 13-year-olds in the population at risk of referral. The case rate for 15-year-olds (8.2 per 1,000) was more than double the rate of 13-year-olds, while the rate for 17-year-olds (10.8 per 1,000) was more than triple that of 13-year-olds. Between 1985 and 1994, petitioned status offense case rates increased among all age categories. The rates for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds rose 116% and 162%, respectively. Age-specific case rate patterns were different among the individual offense categories. Runaway, truancy, and ungovernability case rates all peaked at age 15 and decreased substantially by age 17. By contrast, status liquor law violation case rates increased continuously with age. The liquor case rate increased from 1.4 cases per 1,000 youth at risk at age 15, to 6.3 cases per 1,000 at age 17. Detention Youth under age 16 accounted for more than half (59%) of the petitioned status offense cases that involved detention in 1994, while youth under age 15 accounted for one-third of cases involving detention. Fifteen-year-olds and 16-year-olds each accounted for one-quarter of the cases involving detention. The likelihood of detention in formally processed status offense cases varied little across age groups. Detention was used in 6% to 8% of petitioned status offense cases involving youth between ages 12 and 17. Among the four major status offenses, the use of detention was most likely for runaway cases. Judicial Decision and Disposition The dispositional profiles of status offenders age 15 or younger versus those age 16 or older were slightly different, possibly reflecting the substantial involvement of older juveniles in status liquor law offenses. Overall, the probability of adjudication was greater for the younger group (56% versus 52%). The likelihood of adjudication varied within the four major status offense categories. Between 1985 and 1994, the likelihood of adjudication declined for status offense cases involving younger youth (from 65% to 56%) as well as older youth (from 66% to 52%). Substantial reductions in the use of adjudication occurred in all offense categories between 1985 and 1994. Adjudicated status offense cases involving juveniles under age 16 were more likely to result in out-of-home placement (19% versus 11% for older youth). For both younger and older juveniles, the use of out-of-home placement for adjudicated status offense cases declined between 1985 and 1994. However, the use of placement increased slightly for younger juveniles charged with status liquor violations and older juveniles charged with truancy. Compared with cases involving older juveniles, a larger proportion of the cases of younger juveniles was placed on formal probation after adjudication (62% versus 48%). A substantially larger proportion of the older group was ordered to pay fines or to enter a treatment or counseling program after adjudication (37% versus 17%), possibly reflecting the greater involvement of older juveniles in status liquor law violation cases. The proportion of adjudicated cases that resulted in formal probation decreased slightly between 1985 and 1994 for older youth but increased for younger juveniles. Sex Males were involved in 58% of petitioned status offense cases in 1994. Males did not dominate all of the individual offense categories, but they accounted for the majority (69%) of status liquor law violation cases. Males and females were more equally involved in truancy and ungovernability cases. Less than half (40%) of runaway cases involved males. The offense profiles of male and female status offense cases reflect the relatively greater male involvement in liquor law violations and the greater female involvement in runaway cases. Runaway cases accounted for 24% of status offense cases involving females compared with 12% of cases involving males. By contrast, a liquor law violation was charged in 32% of status offense cases involving males compared with 19% of cases involving female juveniles. The volume of petitioned status offense cases involving females increased 58% between 1985 and 1994, while the volume of cases involving males increased 73%. For both males and females, the largest relative increase was in the number of cases involving the assortment of "miscellaneous" status offenses. Ungovernability cases decreased for both males and females between 1985 and 1994. In 1994, juvenile courts handled 5.2 status offense cases involving males for every 1,000 at-risk males in the population and 4.0 status offense cases involving females for every 1,000 females at risk of referral. The male and female petitioned status offense case rates were relatively equal compared with the large differences in delinquency case rates. However, the status offense case rates for males age 16 and older were considerably higher than those for females. The status offense case rate for females peaked at age 15 and declined by age 17, whereas the case rate for males increased sharply through age 17. For both truancy and ungovernability cases, the male and female case rates were nearly equal at each age, peaking at age 15 or 16 and declining markedly thereafter. By contrast, status liquor case rates were substantially greater for males than for females after age 15. Both male and female case rates within the status liquor category increased continuously with age, showing large increases in the older age groups. In runaway cases, unlike any of the other status offense categories, the female case rate was consistently greater than the male case rate until age 17. Detention Status offense cases involving females were as likely to involve detention as were cases involving males in 1994. Detention was used in 7% of all status offense cases involving either gender. For both males and females, runaway cases were the most likely to involve detention -- 17% for males and 14% for females. The likelihood of detention decreased substantially for both sexes between 1985 and 1994. Judicial Decision and Disposition Juvenile court handling of petitioned status offense cases differed slightly according to the sex of the juvenile. Formally handled status offense cases involving males were slightly more likely to be adjudicated than cases involving females (55% compared with 53%). The likelihood of adjudication for males and females differed only slightly within each of the four major status offense categories. The probability of adjudication for formal status offense cases declined between 1985 and 1994 for both males and females. Once adjudicated, the likelihood of out-of-home placement for petitioned status offense cases was the same (16%) for males and females in 1994. The likelihood of out-of-home placement declined between 1985 and 1994 for both males and females. For ungovernability cases involving males, the probability of out-of-home placement decreased from 36% in 1985 to 26% in 1994. The likelihood of placement for runaway cases involving females declined from 35% to 26% during the same period. Probation was slightly less likely in 1994 than in 1985 for cases involving male status offenders. For adjudicated cases involving females, the use of probation increased from 57% to 60%. Changes in the use of probation varied among the four major status offenses. Most of the difference reflected the greater involvement of males in status liquor law violations, which were less likely to result in formal orders of probation in 1994. Race In 1994, white juveniles were involved in 77% of all formally processed status offense cases, a proportion comparable to their representation in the general population.(4) White youth were involved in 76% of runaway cases, 73% of truancy cases, 72% of ungovernability cases, and 89% of status liquor law violation cases. Compared with the status offense caseload of black youth, the caseload of white youth and youth of other races showed substantially greater proportions of status liquor law violations. Between 1985 and 1994, the number of petitioned status offense cases involving white juveniles increased 60%, while the number of cases involving black youth grew 84%, and those involving youth of other races rose 161%. The number of cases involving status liquor law violations and miscellaneous status offenses increased considerably among all three racial groups. The number of cases involving charges of ungovernability decreased among white youth and black youth. In 1994, the total status offense case rate for black juveniles (5.6 cases per 1,000) was greater than the case rates for either white youth (4.4) or youth of other races (3.8). In three of the four major status offense categories, case rates for black youth were substantially greater than corresponding rates for whites or youth of other races. The rate of liquor cases, on the other hand, was lowest among black juveniles (0.3 cases per 1,000 youth at risk). The overall status offense case rate for white juveniles increased continuously with age in 1994, rising from 2.8 for 13-year-olds to 11.5 for 17-year-olds. Case rates for black youth increased through age 15 and then dropped substantially. Among the runaway, truancy, and ungovernability caseloads, the case rates of all racial groups dropped substantially before the age of 17. By contrast, the rates of status liquor law violation cases increased continuously with age for all racial groups. Detention In 1994, detention was used at some point between referral and disposition in 6% of all petitioned status offense cases involving white youth, 12% of those involving black youth, and 10% of cases involving youth of other races. Between 1985 and 1994, the use of detention for petitioned status offense cases declined among all racial groups. Judicial Decision and Disposition Petitioned status offense cases involving white youth and those involving black youth were less likely to be adjudicated than those involving youth of other races in 1994. Adjudication resulted in 54% of cases involving white youth, 54% of those involving black youth, and 63% of cases involving youth of other races. When the most serious charge in a case was truancy, cases involving black youth were more likely to be adjudicated (61%) than those involving white youth (54%) or youth of other races (57%). In cases involving status liquor law violations, the likelihood of adjudication for cases involving black youth was less than those involving white youth or youth of other races. In 1994, 20% of adjudicated status offense cases involving black youth resulted in out-of-home placement compared with 15% of cases involving white youth and 17% of those involving youth of other races. Among adjudicated cases involving charges of truancy, white youth and black youth were equally likely to be placed out of the home (11%). Among adjudicated ungovernability cases disposed by juvenile courts in 1994, those involving white juveniles were more likely to end in placement. Between 1985 and 1994, the probability of out-of-home placement decreased for all three racial groups. In 1994, probation was the most restrictive disposition used in 55% of status offense cases involving white youth, 67% of cases involving black youth, and 46% of those involving youth of other races. In all racial groups, the status offense cases most likely to result in formal probation were those involving charges of truancy. Between 1985 and 1994, the likelihood of formal probation increased slightly for cases involving black youth (from 61% to 67%), was relatively unchanged for those involving white youth (55% in 1994 versus 54% in 1985), and decreased substantially for cases involving youth of other races (from 71% to 46%). Notes (1) A number of other behaviors may be considered status offenses (e.g., curfew violations, tobacco offenses). All such offenses are combined within a "miscellaneous" category in this report. Due to the heterogeneity of these offenses, these cases are not discussed independently. However, all totals include the "miscellaneous status offenses." (2) This report presents analyses only of formally handled status offenses. See the Introduction to this report for further explanation. (3) The remaining flow diagrams in this chapter present only proportions and not estimates of case counts because of the relatively low volumes of cases in many of the branches. (4) Whites make up approximately 80% of the Nation's youth population at risk. Nearly all youth of Hispanic ethnicity are included in the white racial category. ------------------------------------ Methods Juvenile Court Statistics (JCS) utilizes data provided to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive by State and county agencies responsible for collecting and/or disseminating information on the processing of youth in juvenile courts. These data are not the result of a uniform data collection effort. They are not derived from a complete census of juvenile courts or obtained from a probability sample of courts. The national estimates presented in this report are developed using compatible information from all courts that are able to provide data to the Archive. Sources of Data The Archive collects data in two forms: court-level aggregate statistics and detailed case-level data. Court-level aggregate statistics are either abstracted from the annual reports of State and local courts or are contributed directly to the Archive. Court-level statistics typically provide counts of the delinquency and status offense cases handled by courts in a defined time period (calendar or fiscal year). Case-level data are usually generated by the automated client-tracking systems or case-reporting systems managed by juvenile courts or other juvenile justice agencies. These systems provide detailed data on the characteristics of each delinquency and status offense case handled by courts, generally including the age, sex, and race of the youth referred; the date and source of referral; offenses charged; detention; petitioning; and the date and type of disposition. The structure of each data set contributed to the Archive is unique, having been designed to meet the information needs of a particular jurisdiction. Archive staff study the structure and content of each data set in order to design an automated restructuring procedure that will transform each jurisdiction's data into a common case-level format. The aggregation of these standardized case-level data files constitutes the Archive's national case-level data base. The compiled data from jurisdictions that contribute only court-level statistics constitutes the national court-level data base. Together, these two multijurisdictional data bases are used to generate the Archive's national estimates of delinquency and status offense cases. Each year, juvenile courts with jurisdiction over more than 95% of the U.S. juvenile population contribute either case-level data or court-level aggregate statistics to the Archive. However, not all of this information can be used to generate the national estimates contained in JCS. To be used in the development of national estimates, the data must be in a compatible unit of count (i.e., case disposed), the data source must demonstrate a pattern of consistent reporting over time (at least 2 years), and the data file contributed to the Archive must represent a complete count of delinquency and/or status offense cases disposed in a jurisdiction during a given year. In 1994, case-level data describing 761,897 delinquency cases handled by 1,405 jurisdictions in 26 States met the Archive's criteria for inclusion in the development of national estimates. Compatible data were available from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. These courts had jurisdiction over 51% of the Nation's juvenile population in 1994. An additional 411 jurisdictions in 5 States (Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Vermont, and Washington) and the District of Columbia reported compatible court-level aggregate statistics on an additional 191,789 delinquency cases. In all, the Archive received compatible case-level data and court-level statistics on delinquency cases from 1,816 jurisdictions containing 67% of the Nation's juvenile population in 1994. Case-level data describing 63,842 formally handled status offense cases from 1,482 jurisdictions in 25 States met the estimation criteria for 1994. The contributing States were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. These courts had jurisdiction over 49% of the juvenile population. An additional 375 jurisdictions in 4 States (Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, and Washington) and the District of Columbia reported compatible court-level aggregate statistics on 11,016 petitioned status offense cases. Altogether, compatible case-level and court-level data on petitioned status offense cases were available from 1,857 jurisdictions containing 64% of the U.S. juvenile population. Youth Population at Risk The volume and characteristics of juvenile court caseloads are partly a function of the size and demographic composition of a jurisdiction's population. Therefore, a critical element in the Archive's development of national estimates is the population of youth that generate the juvenile court referrals in each jurisdiction -- i.e., the "youth at risk" or "juvenile" population of every U.S. county. A survey of the Archive's case-level data shows that very few delinquency or status offense cases involve youth under the age of 10. Therefore, the lower age limit of the youth population at risk is set at 10 years for all jurisdictions. On the other hand, the upper age limit varies by State. Every State defines an upper age limit for youth who will come under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court if they commit an illegal act. (See "Upper Age of Jurisdiction" in the Glossary of Terms.) Most States define this age to be 17 years, although some States have set the age at 15 or 16 years. States often enact exceptions to this simple age criterion (e.g., youthful offender legislation, concurrent jurisdiction or extended jurisdiction provisions). In general, however, juvenile courts have responsibility for all law violations committed by youth at or below the upper age of original jurisdiction. For the purposes of this report, therefore, the youth population at risk is defined as the number of youth living in a jurisdiction who are at least 10 years old but who are not older than the upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction. For example, in New York, where the upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction is 15, the youth population at risk is the number of youth residing in a county who are between the ages of 10 and 15. The youth-population-at-risk estimates used in this report were developed by using data from the Bureau of the Census and Demo-Detail, a private organization that generates small area population data.(1) The estimates, separated into single-year age groups, contain the number of whites, blacks, and individuals of other races who reside in each county in the Nation and who are between the ages of 10 and the upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction.(2) Estimation Procedure National estimates are developed using the national case-level data base, the national court-level data base, and the Archive's youth-population-at-risk estimates for every U.S. county. "County" was selected as the unit of aggregation because (1) most juvenile court jurisdictions in the United States are concurrent with county boundaries, (2) most data contributed by juvenile courts include the county in which the case was handled, and (3) youth population estimates can be developed at the county level.(3) The Archive's national estimates are generated by analyzing the data obtained from its nonprobability sample of juvenile courts and then weighting (multiplying) those cases to represent the number of cases handled by juvenile courts nationwide. The Archive employs an elaborate multivariate weighting procedure that adjusts for a number of factors related to juvenile court caseloads -- i.e., the court's jurisdictional responsibilities (upper age); the size and demographic composition of the community; the age, sex, and race profile of the youth involved in juvenile court cases; and the offenses charged against the youth. The basic assumption underlying the estimation procedure is that similar legal and demographic factors shape the volume and characteristics of cases in reporting and nonreporting counties of comparable size and features. The estimation procedure develops independent estimates for the number of petitioned delinquency cases, the number of nonpetitioned delinquency cases, and the number of petitioned status offense cases handled by juvenile courts nationwide. Identical procedures are used to develop all case estimates. The first step in the estimation procedure is to place all U.S. counties into one of four strata based on the population of youth between the ages of 10 and 17. The lower and upper population limits of the four strata are defined each year so that each stratum contains one-quarter of the national population of youth between the ages of 10 and 17. In each of the four strata, the Archive determines the number of at-risk youth in three age groups: 10- through 15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, and 17-year-olds. The three age groups are further subdivided into three racial groups -- white, black, and other. Thus, youth-population-at-risk estimates are developed for nine age-by-race categories in each stratum of counties. The next step is to identify the jurisdictions within each stratum that contributed case-level data to the Archive consistent with JCS reporting requirements. The national case-level data base is summarized to determine the number of court cases within each stratum that involved youth in each of the nine age/race population groups. Case rates (number of cases per 1,000 youth at risk) are developed for the nine age/race groups within each of the four strata. For example, assume that a total of 2,600,000 white youth between the ages of 10 and 15 resided in the Stratum 4 counties that reported case-level data to the Archive. If the Archive's case-level data base shows that the juvenile courts in these counties handled 44,000 petitioned delinquency cases involving white youth between the ages of 10 and 15, the number of cases per 1,000 white youth ages 10 to 15 for Stratum 4 would be 16.9, or: (44,000/2,600,000) x 1,000 = 16.9 Comparable analyses are then used to establish the Stratum 4 case rate for black youth between the ages of 10 and 15, and the case rate of 10- through 15-year-olds of other races per 1,000 youth at risk in the population. Next, information contained in the national court-level data base is introduced, and case rates are adjusted accordingly. First, each court-level statistic is disaggregated into the nine age/race groups. This separation is accomplished by assuming that for each jurisdiction, the relationships among the stratum's nine age/race case rates (developed using the case-level data) are paralleled in the aggregate statistic. For example, assume that a jurisdiction in Stratum 4 with an upper age of 15 processed 600 cases during the year and that this jurisdiction had a population-at-risk of 12,000 white youth, 6,000 black youth, and 2,000 youth of other races. The Stratum 4 case rates for white, black, and other race youth between the ages of 10 and 15 would be multiplied by the corresponding population to develop estimates of the proportion of the court's caseload that came from each age/race group. The jurisdiction's total caseload of 600 would then be allocated based on these proportions. In this example, 40.7% of all cases reported in the jurisdiction's aggregate statistics involved white youth, 56.3% involved black youth, and the remaining 3.0% involved youth of other races. When these proportions are applied to a reported aggregate statistic of 600 cases, this jurisdiction is estimated to have handled 244 white youth, 338 black youth, and 18 youth of other races age 15 or younger. The same method is used to develop case counts for all nine age/race groups for each jurisdiction reporting only aggregate court-level statistics. The disaggregated court-level counts are added to the counts developed from case-level data to produce an estimate of the number of cases involving each of the nine age/race groups handled by reporting courts in each of the four strata. The population-at-risk figures for the entire sample are also compiled. Together, the case counts and the population-at-risk figures are used to generate a revised set of case rates for each of the nine age/race groups within the four strata. Stratum estimates for the total number of cases involving each age/race group are then calculated by multiplying the revised case rate for each of the nine age/race groups in a stratum by the corresponding youth population at risk in all counties belonging to that stratum (both reporting and nonreporting). Having calculated the national estimate for the total number of cases in each age/race group in each stratum, the next step is to generate estimates of their case characteristics. This estimate is accomplished by weighting the individual case-level records stored in the Archive's national case-level data base. For example, assume that the Archive generates an estimate of 30,000 petitioned delinquency cases involving white 16-year-olds from Stratum 4 juvenile courts. Assume also that the national case-level data base for that year contained 18,000 petitioned delinquency cases involving white 16-year-olds from Stratum 4 counties. In the Archive's national estimation data base, each Stratum 4 petitioned delinquency case that involved a white 16-year-old would be weighted by 1.67, because: 30,000/18,000 = 1.67 The final step in the estimation procedure is to impute missing data on individual case records. The procedures to adjust for missing data assume that case records with missing data are similar in structure to those without missing data. For example, assume that among cases from a particular stratum detention information was missing on 100 cases involving 16-year-old white males who were petitioned to court, adjudicated for a property offense, and then placed on probation. If similar cases from the same stratum showed that 20% of these cases involved detention, then it would be assumed that 20% of the 100 cases missing detention information also involved detention. Thus, missing data are imputed within each stratum by reviewing the characteristics of cases with similar case attributes (i.e., age, sex, and race of the youth; offense charged; and the court's detention, petition, adjudication, and disposition decisions). More detailed information about the Archive's national estimation methodology is available upon request from the National Center for Juvenile Justice. Notes (1) County-level intercensal estimates were obtained from the Bureau of the Census for the years 1985þ1989, and county-level estimates for 1990þ1994 were obtained from Demo-Detail. The following data files were used: 1980þ1989 Preliminary Estimates of the Population of Counties by Age, Sex, and Race. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1993. County Estimates by Race, Sex, and Single Year of Age: 1990þ1995 (July 1). Alexandria, VA: Demo-Detail. 1996. (2) "Other races" are Asians, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders. Most individuals of Hispanic ancestry are coded as white. (3) The only information used in this report that cannot be aggregated by county is data contributed by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS), which identifies only the HRS district in which each case is handled. To utilize the HRS data, the aggregation criterion is relaxed to include 11 HRS districts. In 1994, there were 3,141 counties in the United States. By replacing Florida's 67 counties with 11 HRS districts, the total number of aggregation units for this report becomes 3,085. Therefore, while the report uses the term "county" to describe its aggregation unit, the reader should be aware of the exception introduced by Florida's HRS data. ------------------------------ Glossary of Terms Adjudicated: Judicial determination (judgment) that a youth is a delinquent or status offender. Age: Age at the time of referral to juvenile court. Case Rate: Number of cases disposed per 1,000 youth at risk. The population base used to calculate the case rate varies. For example, the population base for the male case rate is the total number of male youth age 10 or older who are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts. (See Youth Population at Risk.) Delinquency: Acts or conduct in violation of criminal law. (See Reason for Referral.) Delinquent Act: An act committed by a juvenile which would require an adult to be prosecuted in a criminal court. Because the act is committed by a juvenile, it falls within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Delinquent acts include crimes against persons, crimes against property, drug offenses, and crimes against public order. Dependency Case: Those cases covering neglect or inadequate care on the part of parents or guardians, such as abandonment or desertion; abuse or cruel treatment; improper or inadequate conditions in the home; and insufficient care or support resulting from death, absence, or physical or mental incapacity of the parents. Detention: The placement of a youth in a restrictive facility between referral to court and case disposition. Disposition: Definite action taken or treatment plan decided on regarding a particular case. Case dispositions are coded into the following categories: o Transfer to Criminal Court -- Cases that were waived to a criminal court because of a waiver or transfer hearing in the juvenile court. o Placement -- Cases in which youth were placed in a residential facility for delinquents or status offenders or cases in which youth were otherwise removed from their homes and placed elsewhere. o Probation -- Cases in which youth were placed on informal/voluntary or formal/court-ordered supervision. o Dismissed -- Cases dismissed (including those warned, counseled, and released) with no further disposition anticipated. Among cases handled informally (see Manner of Handling), some cases may be dismissed by the juvenile court because the matter is being handled in criminal court. o Other -- Miscellaneous dispositions not included above. These dispositions include fines, restitution, community service, referrals outside the court for services with minimal or no further court involvement anticipated, and dispositions coded as "other" in a jurisdiction's original data. Formal Handling: See Manner of Handling. Informal Handling: See Manner of Handling. Intake Decision: The decision made by juvenile court intake that results in either the case being handled informally at the intake level or being petitioned and scheduled for an adjudicatory or transfer hearing. Judicial Decision: The decision made in response to a petition that asks the court to adjudicate or transfer the youth. This decision is generally made by a juvenile court judge or referee. Judicial Disposition: The disposition rendered in a case after the judicial decision has been made. Juvenile: Youth at or below the upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction. (See Upper Age of Jurisdiction and Youth Population at Risk.) Juvenile Court: Any court that has jurisdiction over matters involving juveniles. Manner of Handling: A general classification of case processing within the court system. Petitioned (formally handled) cases are those that appear on the official court calendar in response to the filing of a petition, complaint, or other legal instrument requesting the court to adjudicate a youth as a delinquent, status offender, or dependent child, or to transfer a youth to adult court. In nonpetitioned (informally handled) cases, duly authorized court personnel screen the case prior to the filing of a formal petition. Such personnel include judges, referees, probation officers, other officers of the court, and/or agencies statutorily designated to conduct petition screening for the juvenile court. Nonpetitioned Case: See Manner of Handling. Petition: A document filed in juvenile court alleging that a juvenile is a delinquent or a status offender and asking that the court assume jurisdiction over the juvenile or that an alleged delinquent be transferred to criminal court for prosecution as an adult. Petitioned Case: See Manner of Handling. Race: The race of the youth referred as determined by the youth or by court personnel. o White -- A person having origins in any of the indigenous peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East. (In both the population and court data, nearly all Hispanics were included in the white racial category.) o Black -- A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. o Other -- A person having origins in any of the indigenous peoples of North America, the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, or the Pacific Islands. Reason for Referral: The most serious offense for which the youth was referred to court intake. Attempts to commit an offense were included under that offense, except attempted murder, which was included in the aggravated assault category. o Crimes Against Persons -- Includes criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, and other person offenses as defined below. - Criminal Homicide -- Causing the death of another person without legal justification or excuse. Criminal homicide is a summary category, not a single codified offense. In law, the term embraces all homicides in which the perpetrator intentionally kills someone without legal justification or accidentally kills someone as a consequence of reckless or grossly negligent conduct. It includes all conduct encompassed by the terms murder, nonnegligent (voluntary) manslaughter, negligent (involuntary) manslaughter, and vehicular manslaughter. The term is broader than the Index Crime category used in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) in which murder/nonnegligent manslaughter does not include negligent manslaughter or vehicular manslaughter. - Forcible Rape -- Sexual intercourse or attempted sexual intercourse with a female against her will by force or threat of force. The term is used in the same sense as in the UCR Crime Index. Some States have enacted gender-neutral rape or sexual assault statutes that prohibit forced sexual penetration of either sex. Data reported by such States do not distinguish between forcible rape of females as defined above and other sexual assaults. (Other violent sex offenses are contained in Other Offenses Against Persons.) - Robbery -- Unlawful taking or attempted taking of property that is in the immediate possession of another by force or threat of force. The term is used in the same sense as in the UCR Crime Index and includes forcible purse snatching. - Assault -- Unlawful intentional infliction, or attempted or threatened infliction, of injury upon the person of another. - Aggravated Assault -- Unlawful intentional infliction of serious bodily injury or unlawful threat or attempt to inflict bodily injury or death by means of a deadly or dangerous weapon with or without actual infliction of any injury. The term is used in the same sense as in the UCR Crime Index. It includes conduct encompassed under the statutory names aggravated assault and battery, aggravated battery, assault with intent to kill, assault with intent to commit murder or manslaughter, atrocious assault, attempted murder, felonious assault, and assault with a deadly weapon. - Simple Assault -- Unlawful intentional infliction or attempted or threatened infliction of less than serious bodily injury without a deadly or dangerous weapon. The term is used in the same sense as in UCR reporting. Simple assault is not often distinctly named in statutes because it consists of all assaults not explicitly named and defined as serious. Unspecified assaults are contained in Other Offenses Against Persons. - Other Offenses Against Persons -- Includes kidnaping, violent sex acts other than forcible rape (e.g., incest, sodomy), custody interference, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment, harassment, and attempts to commit any such acts. o Crimes Against Property -- Includes burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson, vandalism, stolen property offenses, trespassing, and other property offenses as defined below. - Burglary -- Unlawful entry or attempted entry of any fixed structure, vehicle, or vessel used for regular residence, industry, or business, with or without force, with intent to commit a felony or larceny. The term is used in the same sense as in the UCR Crime Index. - Larceny -- Unlawful taking or attempted taking of property (other than a motor vehicle) from the possession of another by stealth, without force and without deceit, with intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property. This term is used in the same sense as in the UCR Crime Index. It includes shoplifting and purse snatching without force. - Motor Vehicle Theft -- Unlawful taking or attempted taking of a self-propelled road vehicle owned by another with the intent to deprive the owner of it permanently or temporarily. The term is used in the same sense as in the UCR Crime Index. It includes joyriding or unauthorized use of a motor vehicle as well as grand theft auto. - Arson -- Intentional damage or destruction by means of fire or explosion of the property of another without the owner's consent or of any property with intent to defraud or attempting the above acts. The term is used in the same sense as in the UCR Crime Index. - Vandalism -- Destroying, damaging, or attempting to destroy or damage public property or the property of another without the owner's consent, except by burning. - Stolen Property Offenses -- Unlawfully and knowingly receiving, buying, or possessing stolen property or attempting any of the above. The term is used in the same sense as the UCR category "stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing." - Trespassing -- Unlawful entry or attempted entry of the property of another with the intent to commit a misdemeanor other than larceny or without intent to commit a crime. - Other Property Offenses -- Includes extortion and all fraud offenses, such as forgery, counterfeiting, embezzlement, check or credit card fraud, and attempts to commit any such offenses. o Drug Law Violations -- Includes unlawful sale, purchase, distribution, manufacture, cultivation, transport, possession, or use of a controlled or prohibited substance or drug or drug paraphernalia or attempt to commit these acts. Sniffing of glue, paint, gasoline, and other inhalants is also included. Hence, the term is broader than the UCR category "drug abuse violations." o Offenses Against Public Order -- Includes weapons offenses; nonviolent sex offenses; liquor law violations, not status; disorderly conduct; obstruction of justice; and other offenses against public order as defined below. - Weapons Offenses -- Unlawful sale, distribution, manufacture, alteration, transportation, possession, or use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or accessory or attempt to commit any of these acts. The term is used in the same sense as the UCR category "weapons; carrying, possessing, etc." - Sex Offenses -- All offenses having a sexual element not involving violence. The term combines the meaning of the UCR categories "prostitution and commercialized vice" and "sex offenses." It includes offenses such as statutory rape, indecent exposure, prostitution, solicitation, pimping, lewdness, fornication, and adultery. - Liquor Law Violations, Not Status -- Being in a public place while intoxicated through consumption of alcohol or intake of a controlled substance or drug. It includes public intoxication, drunkenness, and other liquor law violations. It does not include driving under the influence. The term is used in the same sense as the UCR category of the same name. Some States treat public drunkenness of juveniles as a status offense rather than delinquency. Hence, some of these offenses may appear under the status offense code status liquor law violations. (When a person who is publicly intoxicated performs acts that cause a disturbance, he or she may be charged with disorderly conduct.) - Disorderly Conduct -- Unlawful interruption of the peace, quiet, or order of a community, including offenses called disturbing the peace, vagrancy, loitering, unlawful assembly, and riot. - Obstruction of Justice -- Intentionally obstructing court or law enforcement efforts in the administration of justice, acting in a way calculated to lessen the authority or dignity of the court, failing to obey the lawful order of a court, and violating probation or parole, other than technical violations that do not consist of committing a crime or are not prosecuted as such. It includes contempt, perjury, obstruction of justice, bribery of witnesses, failure to report a crime, and nonviolent resistance of arrest. - Other Offenses Against Public Order -- Other offenses against government administration or regulation -- e.g., escape from confinement; bribery; gambling, fish and game, hitchhiking, and health violations; false fire alarms; and immigration violations. o Status Offenses -- Includes acts or types of conduct that are offenses only when committed or engaged in by a juvenile and that can be adjudicated only by a juvenile court. Although State statutes defining status offenses vary and some States may classify cases involving these offenses as dependency cases, for the purposes of this report the following types of offenses were classified as status offenses: - Runaway -- Leaving the custody and home of parents, guardians, or custodians without permission and failing to return within a reasonable length of time in violation of a statute regulating the conduct of youth. - Truancy -- Violation of a compulsory school attendance law. - Ungovernability -- Being beyond the control of parents, guardians, or custodians or being disobedient of parental authority. It is referred to in various juvenile codes as unruly, unmanageable, and incorrigible. - Status Liquor Law Violations -- Violation of laws regulating the possession, purchase, or consumption of liquor by minors. Some States treat consumption of alcohol and public drunkenness of juveniles as a status offense rather than delinquency. Hence, some of these offenses may appear under this status offense code. - Miscellaneous Status Offenses -- Numerous status offenses not included above (e.g., tobacco violation, curfew violation, and violation of a court order in a status offense proceeding) and those offenses coded as "other" in a jurisdiction's original data. o Dependency Offenses -- Includes actions that come to the attention of a juvenile court involving neglect or inadequate care of minors on the part of the parents or guardians, such as abandonment or desertion; abuse or cruel treatment; improper or inadequate conditions in the home; and insufficient care or support resulting from death, absence, or physical or mental incapacity of the parents. Offenses may also be grouped into categories commonly used in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. These groupings are: o Crime Index -- Includes all offenses contained within the Violent Crime and Property Crime categories defined below. - Violent Crime Index -- Includes the offenses of murder/nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. - Property Crime Index -- Includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Source of Referral: The agency or individual filing a complaint with intake that initiates court processing. o Law Enforcement Agency -- Includes metropolitan police, State police, park police, sheriffs, constables, police assigned to the juvenile court for special duty, and all others performing a police function, with the exception of probation officers and officers of the court. o Other -- Includes the youth's own parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, stepparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, other legal guardians, counselors, teachers, principals, attendance officers, social agencies, district attorneys, probation officers, victims, other private citizens, and miscellaneous sources of referral that are often only defined by the code other in the original data. Status Offense: Behavior that is considered an offense only when committed by a juvenile (e.g., running away from home). (See Reason for Referral.) Unit of Count: A case disposed by a court with juvenile jurisdiction during the calendar year. Each case represents a youth referred to the juvenile court for a new referral for one or more offenses. (See Reason for Referral.) The term disposed means that during the year some definite action was taken or some treatment plan was decided on or initiated. (See Disposition.) Under this definition, a youth could be involved in more than one case during a calendar year. Upper Age of Jurisdiction: The oldest age at which a juvenile court has original jurisdiction over an individual for law-violating behavior. For the time period covered by this report, the upper age of jurisdiction was 15 in three States (Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina), and 16 in eight States (Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, South Carolina, and Texas). In the remaining States and the District of Columbia, the upper age of jurisdiction was 17. While the upper age of jurisdiction is commonly recognized in all States, there are numerous exceptions (e.g., concurrent jurisdiction, legislative exclusion, continuing jurisdiction). Youth Population at Risk: For delinquency and status offense matters, the youth population at risk is defined as the number of children between the ages of 10 and the upper age of jurisdiction. For dependency matters, it is defined as the number of children at or below the upper age of jurisdiction. Thus, when the upper age of jurisdiction is 17, the delinquency and status offense youth population at risk is equal to the number of children between the ages of 10 and 17 living within the geographical area serv- iced by the court. (See Upper Age of Jurisdiction.) ------------------------------ Appendix: Reported Juvenile Court Cases Disposed in 1994 by County Information on the courts' petitioned and nonpetitioned delinquency, status, and dependency caseloads for the year is presented in the following table. The total population of each reporting jurisdiction, its 10 through the upper age of jurisdiction population, and its 0 through the upper age of jurisdiction population are also presented. Case rates (the number of cases per 1,000 youth at risk) are presented for each case type for the State (or jurisdiction). Delinquency and status offense case rates are based on the 10 through upper age population, while rates for dependency cases are based on the 0 through upper age population. Table notes follow the table. The notes associated with each data presentation identify the source of the data, the mode of transmission, and the characteristics of data reported. State and local agencies responsible for the collection of their juvenile court statistics compiled the data found in this table. Agencies transmitted these juvenile court caseload data to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive in one of four different modes. First, many jurisdictions were able to provide the project with an automated data file that contained a detailed description of each case processed by their juvenile courts. Second, some agencies completed a juvenile court statistics (JCS) survey form provided by the project. The survey requested information about each county jurisdiction, asking for the number of delinquency, status offense, and dependency cases disposed and for the number of petition and nonpetition cases. Third, statistics for some jurisdictions were abstracted from their annual reports. In these instances, the report name and the page containing the information are listed. Finally, a few States simply sent statistical pages to the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) that contained counts of their courts' handling of juvenile matters. The units of count for the court statistics vary across jurisdictions. Although many States reported their data using cases disposed as the unit of count, other States reported cases filed, children disposed, petitions filed, hearings, juvenile arraignments, and charges. The unit of count is identified in the notes for each data set. The unit of count for each source should be reviewed before any attempt is made to compare statistics either across or within data sets. Variations in administrative practices, differences in upper ages of jurisdiction, and wide ranges in available community resources affect the number of cases handled by individual counties and States. Therefore, the data should not be used to make comparisons among the delinquency, status offense, or dependency workloads of counties or States without carefully studying the definitions of the statistics presented. States that have indicated incomplete reporting of data also are noted. Furthermore, caution must be taken when interpreting the case rates appearing at the end of each State table. Case rate is defined as the number of juvenile court cases per 1,000 children at risk in the reporting counties. For example, not all California counties reported statistics on nonpetitioned delinquency cases. The California nonpetitioned delinquency case rate was generated from the total number of nonpetitioned delinquency cases from reporting counties. The figures within a column relate only to the specific case type. However, some jurisdictions were unable to provide statistics that distinguish delinquency and status offense cases from dependency matters or, at times, from other court activities. Such information is presented in this appendix in a column labeled "All Reported Cases." By its nature, this column contains a heterogeneous mixture of units of count and case types. These variations are identified in the notes associated with each data presentation. Furthermore, due to the nature of these data, case rates are not calculated for the "All Reported Cases" column. Finally, although the majority of the data presented in the appendix are for calendar year 1994, several reporting jurisdictions were not able to aggregate data for this timeframe. In those instances, the data cover fiscal year 1994. The period of coverage is indicated in the notes.