National Center for Juvenile Justice
The most recent in the Juvenile Court Statistics series, this report describes delinquency cases handled between 1985 and 2004, and status offender cases handled between 1995 and 2004. The data used in the analyses were sent to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive by nearly 1,900 courts that had jurisdiction over more than three-quarters of the nation’s juvenile population in 2004. Among the findings:
• The number of delinquency cases processed by juvenile courts increased 44 percent between 1985 and 2004. Public order offense cases accounted for more than half of that increase, while “person offenses” made up another 43 percent.
• Between 2000 and 2004, the volume of juvenile court cases involving Property Crime Index offenses (burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson) declined by 10 percent.
• In 2004, 57 percent of all delinquency cases processed by the juvenile courts involved youth age 15 or younger at the time of referral.
Free. 172 pages. (412) 227-6950, http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/publications/PubAbstract.asp?pubi=240291.
