America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007
Youth Perpetrators of Serious Violent Crimes
The level of youth violence in society can be viewed as an indicator of youths' ability to control their behavior, and the adequacy of socializing agents such as families, peers, schools, and religious institutions to supervise or channel youth behavior to acceptable norms. One measure of the serious violent crime committed by juveniles is the extent to which at least one juvenile offender is reported by the victim to be involved in a crime.
Indicator BEH5: Rate of serious crimes by youth perpetrators ages 12–17, 1980–2005
NOTE: The offending rate is the ratio of the number of crimes (aggravated assault, rape, and robbery, i.e., stealing by force or threat of violence) reported to the National Crime Victimization Survey that involved at least one offender perceived by the victim to be 12–17 years of age, plus the number of homicides reported to the police that involved at least one juvenile offender, to the number of juveniles in the population. Because of changes made in the victimization survey, data prior to 1992 are adjusted to make them comparable with data collected under the redesigned methodology. The 2005 data were collected during the calendar year and include some incidents that occurred during the previous year. Data for previous years are of victimizations experienced in the calendar year. This was done because the full data for 2005 were not yet available. Analyses comparing these data show only a small difference between the two methods.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Supplementary Homicide Reports.
- In 2005, the serious violent crime offending rate was 17 crimes per 1,000 juveniles ages 12–17, totaling 437,000 such crimes involving juveniles. While this is somewhat higher than the rate in 2004, it is significantly lower than the 1993 peak rate of 52 crimes per 1,000 juveniles ages 12–17.
- Between 1980 and 1989, the serious violent juvenile crime offending rate fluctuated between 29 and 40 per 1,000 juveniles and then began to increase to a high of 52 per 1,000 juveniles in 1993. Since then, the rate has, in general, trended downward with a rate of 14 per 1,000 juveniles in 2004 and a somewhat significant increase to 17 per 1,000 juveniles in 2005.
- Since 1980, serious violent crime involving youth offenders has ranged from 19 percent of all serious violent victimizations in 1982 to 26 percent in 1993, the peak year for youth violence. In 2005, 24 percent of all such victimizations reportedly involved a juvenile offender.
- In about half of all serious violent juvenile crimes reported by victims in 2005, more than one offender was involved in the incident. Because insufficient detail exists to determine the ages of each individual offender when a crime is committed by more than one offender, the number of additional juvenile offenders cannot be determined. Therefore, this rate of serious violent crime offending does not represent the number of juvenile offenders in the population, but rather the rate of crimes involving a juvenile.
