Juvenile Arrests: The law enforcement agencies in the United States reported approximately 2.11 million juvenile arrests in 2008 of people younger than 18 years. As compared to 2007, there were fewer juvenile arrests with 3% decline and 2% decline in arrests associated with violent crime. The decline in juvenile arrests continued a trend that was prevalent after 2007, which had a higher rate of arrests of people below 18 years. Actually, these arrests had escalated for nearly more than two years since the 2005 statistics. The increase during this period was accompanied with concerns that the country was on the verge of another juvenile crime wave. A significant portion of juveniles who were arrested during period were accused of violent offenses like rape, aggravated assault, and murder.

Overall Decrease in Juvenile Arrests:

In 2008, there were slightly more than 2 million people under 18 years who were arrested most of who were accused of violent crimes like rape, murder, or aggravated assault. These statistics represented 3% decline as compared to juvenile arrests in 2007 and 2% decline in violent crime arrests (Puzzanchera, 2009). The rates of juvenile arrests in 2008 also decreased as compared to 2005 and 2006 when it was high. The 2005 and 2006 juvenile arrests were accompanied with fears that the country was nearly falling into juvenile crime wave. However, the 2008 juvenile crime...

10% increase or decrease.
The juvenile crimes data was based on statistics obtained from law enforcement agencies throughout the country based on report from the Uniform Crime Reporting Program by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition to these statistics, the UCR Program also reported people below 18 years accounted for 16% of all arrests associated with violent crime and 26% of property crime arrests throughout the country. People below 18 years old were responsible for 12% and 18% of violent crimes and property crimes respectively. Even though the proportion of juvenile murder victims differed across demographic serious, 38% of them were below 5 years.

As compared to 2004, the rate of juvenile murder was 3.8 arrests in every 100,000 juveniles between 10 and 17 years. Generally, there was an estimated 16,720 juvenile murders that were reported to police agencies during this period. This was a representation of 5.4 murders for every 100,000 American residents. Moreover, 89% of all murder victims in this year were at least 18 years old and the rest were below 18 years. Notably, 70% of juvenile murder victims were male whereas 50% were white people. 30%, 57%, 44%, and 30% of all juvenile murder victims during this period were male victims, female victims, white victims, and black victims below 5 years respectively.

Increase in Drug Offenses and Simple Assaults:

According to reports by FBI's UCR Program, drug abuse violations accounted for the most frequent juvenile arrests in 2008 ("2008 Crime in the United States," 2009). Actually, drug abuse related cases or offenses accounted for 12.2% of the overall number…