Juvenile Arrest Rates Review of the DOJ 2008 Juvenile Arrest Report

The overall rate of juvenile arrests declined by 3% between 2007 and 2008 for all persons younger than the age of 18 (Puzzanchera, 2009). This continues a trend of year-to-year reductions in overall juvenile arrest rates. Between 2004 and 2008 there was an overall 4% reduction in juvenile arrest rates and between 1999 and 2008 a 16% reduction. The source of this information is the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

Although American law enforcement agencies made 2.11 million arrests of persons under the age of 18, this does not mean that 2.11 million juveniles were arrested (Puzzanchera, 2009). A single juvenile may be arrested several times during a reporting year, which means that the number of juveniles responsible for the 2.11 million arrests is less than 2.11 million. In addition, a single juvenile may have committed multiple crimes, but is arrested only once, or multiple juveniles are arrested for a single...

Another limitation is that law enforcement agencies are only required to report the most serious crime that the juvenile committed, not all the crimes he or she may have been arrested for. At the end of the report the author mentions that reporting jurisdictions in some parts of the country may have a higher tourist and/or immigrant population and therefore the juvenile arrest rates may not be an accurate reflection of the criminality of resident juveniles. According to the author of this report, the most appropriate use of juvenile arrest rates is for tracking juvenile flow volume into the criminal justice system.
The number of arrests attributed to drug offenses declined by 7% between 1999 and 2008, while for adults it increased by 15% (Puzzanchera, 2009). This may seem like a remarkable improvement, but when juvenile drug-related arrests are examined for the entire period between 1990 and 2008, there was a 78% increase. Likewise, between 1999 and 2008 the juvenile arrest rates for…