Juvenile Crime Statistics

Studies on relationship between race and delinquency primarily focus on two groups, African Americans and Whites. Applicable arrest data reports that African Americans are disproportionately involved in delinquency, with larger differences for serious crimes. Recent analysis has indicated that these race differences have declined in recent years. Criticism of these studies note that crimes committed by African Americans may be more likely to come to attention of the police and that African Americans offenders are more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts. Early self-report data found little or no relationship between race and delinquency. Later self-report studies found that African Americans and whites commit similar levels of minor delinquency, while African Americans are more likely to engage in serious delinquency, but not to extent reported in arrest data. The studies attributed the discrepancy to a larger percentage of high-rate African Americans offenders than high-rate white offenders. Victimization data suggests that African Americans are more likely than whites to be both offenders and victims of violence. Race and social class explain some but not all of the factors contributing to serious delinquency (Wright and Younts, 2009).

This may lead to police resources becoming strained dealing with certain types of crimes and they are unable to engage in preventive patrol or respond to calls about suspicious groups of youth, which in turn leads to the number of youth arrested for minor types of property crimes and antisocial behavior declining although the number of crimes haven’t

Juvenile Delinquency has increased throughout the years. In 2008 the United States police arrested about 2.11 million juveniles. Juvenile arrest rates had increased in 2005 and again in 2006. Data show increases in some offense categories but declines in most. Most changes being less than 10% in either direction. According to the data arson at 47% is one of the biggest crimes that juveniles commit. Following are robbery at 27%, burglary at 27%, and property crimes at 26%. Juveniles are creating more problems for parents, schools, and communities. In 2007 juvenile courts dealt with a large amount of juvenile delinquents. About 4,600 cases per day were being treated at the courts (Puzzanchera, Charles).

The statistics are from 2012, so they could be slightly misleading because certain crimes could have changed slightly, or drastically in the past 3 years. Also, these statistics could be misleading due to the fact of the percentages of the populations of each race in the United states. Statistically, whites commit more crimes than any other race, this is to be expected because they make up the highest percentage of the United States population. The percentage of whites is 62.6% of the population, the percentage of blacks is 12.3% of the population, the percentage of Native Americans is 2% of the population, and for Asians, the percentage is 5%. If you compare the percentage of the population to the amount of crimes committed, African Americans would actually commit crimes at a higher rate than any other race, with whites second, Asians third, and Native Americans

According to statistics, minorities make up the majority of inmates. Are these figures due to the shear criminal nature of minorities or are they the result of racial profiling? Throughout the years, many former policemen have admitted that they or somebody in their faction have employed racial profiling as a tactic despite the fact that it is illegal. This hypocrisy under the law has allowed many whites to slide by with only a warning, while blacks are forced into prosecution. However, these skewed results wouldn’t account for the high percentage of the black population that is currently incarcerated. According to a census taken by the Federal Bureau of Prisons on February 22, 2014, by race, whites make up only 59.5% of the prison population (blacks are second (37.2%), Native Americans are third (1.9%), and Asians are fourth (1.5%)). Additionally, by ethnicity, 65.5% of

In order to understand the nature of the statistical disparity, the first aspect that must be examined is necessarily the statistics themselves. Recent data (1998) shows that more than two out of every three arrested persons are white (67.6%) and that African Americans account for only 30% of all arrests. More striking is the data adjusted per capita: African Americans are two and a half times as likely to be arrested as whites, and are even more over-represented in violent crimes, for which they are over three times as likely to be arrested. African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested in cases of robbery or murder (Walker et al., 39).

What are racial disparities in the criminal justice system? Racial disparities in the criminal justice system can be defined as “the proportion of a racial or ethnic group within the control of the system is greater than the proportion of such groups in the general population” (NCJRS, 2016.) There is an enormous racial disparity between African Americans and Whites in the United States criminal justice system. What are the racial disparities in the criminal justice system? This paper will show the racial disparities among African Americans and Whites through statistics of the criminal justice system.

Q1.The racial/ethnic differences in offending, victimization, and incarceration? Minorities, particularly African Americans, are generally overrepresented in the criminal justice system both as offenders and as victims.  According to the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) for 2003, African Americans (who were 12.7 percent of the population in 2003) were arrested for 37 percent of violent crimes (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault) and 29 percent of property crime (102:288). African Americans are disproportionately arrested for violent crimes and whites for burglaries and property crimes. Although most crime is committed by males, black women are also disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system. The rate of black women under control of the criminal justice system is growing faster than for any other group, including black men and white men (86:136). Blacks are victims of serious violent crimes at far higher rates than whites. In 2002, blacks were 6 times more likely to be murdered than whites; and although homicide levels have declined for all groups over the past decade, during the 1976 to 2002 period, rates were disproportionately high for African Americans at 47 percent of victims (28

Juvenile crime statistics show that offenders under the age of 15 represent the leading edge of the juvenile crime problem. "Violent crime grew some 94% among these youngsters from 1990 to 1995- compared with 47% for older youth (Siegel and Welsh, 2011).

These rates guide spending and funding decisions aimed to effectively combat crime. While there is no standard rate that is aimed for, the idea is to try to reduce the recidivism rate or even keep it the same opposed to raising it. When the recidivism rates are not progressing in the manner expected, these agencies must try to find other avenues and strategies that will make a positive impact on the recidivism rates, and in the long run, these juvenile’s lives. (CJCA, 2011)

It may seem that incarceration rates are high for minorities at the federal level, but the rates are even higher at the state levels. African Americans are 5.6 times, and Hispanics are 1.8 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. Young African American and Hispanic males are leading incarceration rates for robbery, drug offenses, followed by murder and nonnegligent manslaughter. Whites show a significant lower number than of the Hispanics and blacks for the violent crimes, but lead incarceration rates for rape and sexual abuse. Whites also exceeded minorities in property crime (108,560), compared to blacks (78,197) and Hispanics (38,264) (E. Ann Carson and Daniela Golinelli, 2013). The demographics show that young minority males are being incarcerated at higher rates for majority of the main crimes

Juvenile offenders are increasing day by day regardless of the efforts to control the youth crime. It is important to understand the fact that even though the offenders fall in the young age bracket, they are still a part of human species. Human nature responds to violent actions with violent reactions. Violent reactions cause an increase in the violent actions instead of controlling them. However violent reactions may cause a temporary stop in the violent actions which may lead the authorities to believe that they have contained the crime. However, that doesn't stand true as a temporary stop does not result in a permanent solution.

Juvenile offending is a concern in society today. Juveniles account for approximately 19% of the population but are responsible for 29% of criminal arrests (Cottle, Lee, & Heilbrun, 2001). Crime overall has been found to be decreasing throughout the last two decades. The issue is that the rate in which adult crime is decreasing is significantly greater than the rate in which juvenile crime is decreasing. Since the rate of juvenile crime is so high, juvenile delinquents are seen as predators and many believe they lack morals. The way in which media of today’s society constructs juvenile delinquency impacts the views of a community towards their youth and youth offenders. Media presents an inaccurate image of youth offenders as violent predators (Rhineberger-Dunn, 2013). This inaccurate image significantly promotes the myths that juvenile crime is rising, juveniles commit crimes that are primarily violent, and that juveniles are highly effected by recidivism and continue committing crimes into adulthood (Bohm, & Walker, 2013). It has already been stated though that crime rates have been decreasing over the last two decades so the first myth is refuted. The myth that juveniles primarily commit violent crimes is also very off. In most cases, juveniles are involved in property crimes and although there are some violent crime cases, they are very rare. When these rare violent crimes do occur, youth can be tried in adult court. The

subjected to the juvenile justice system, but an alarming number of youths are transferred to

Juvenile delinquent behavior is believed to be under-represented due to the limited methods of collecting juvenile crime data. Juvenile arrests accounted for 16 percent of all violent crime arrests (i.e. murder, rape,