Just how much delinquency is going on?

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Just how much delinquency is going on?

• Defining/Measuring Juvenile Crime
• Trends in Juvenile Delinquency, and Abuse/Neglect
• The Danger of Misusing Data

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Types of Delinquency

• Status Offenses
• Hard to get reliable information
• Self-report probably most accurate
• Delinquent Activity (Crime for adults)
• Same sources of information as for adults, but
  how to tease out age?
• Even when we get age less than 18
• Abuse/Neglect Cases
• Official Data very suspect (sexual abuse example)

3
Uniform Crime Reports

• Best for Serious Offenses/Crime Trends
• Offenses Known to police (useless for JD)
• Arrests/Crimes Cleared by Arrest Keep information
  for lt18 years
• Bias police discretion practices, reporting
• Serious crimes ltbias (discretion, reporting)
• Murder most reliable
• Downside only most serious offenders included

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New System NIBRS

• Get more detailed information about each
  incident (violent only)
• Law Enforcements assessment of which crimes were
  committed by juveniles based on report/other
  evidence
• 19 of the victims of nonfatal violent crimes
  were victimized by juvenile offender(s)
• Most victims (62) in these offenses were also
  juveniles
• Some differences (e.g., robbery 42)
• Most offenses involved victims known to offenders
  (only 12 were against strangers).

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National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

• National household victimization survey
• For juveniles, cannot assess property crime
• National Trends for Juvenile Violent Crime can be
  estimated
• Aggravated Assault, Robbery, Forcible Rape (Not
  Murder)
• Upside dark figure
• Downside know age of offender?

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Self-Report Surveys

• No government sponsored annual national level
  survey (not used for trends)
• Many different researchers with national surveys,
  some longitudinal
• National Youth Survey (NYS)
• National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY)
• Monitoring the Future Survey
• Best Uses Correlates of Delinquency
• Especial for theory testing, but also race and
  gender differences

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Self-Report II

• The Good
• Measure all kinds of correlates
• Not subject to official bias
• The Bad
• Difficult to measure serious crime (rare event)
• Difficult to get/retain chronic offenders
• Therefore, SR surveys tend to measure minor forms
  of delinquency
• Various survey biases (people lie, cant
  remember, etc.)

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What do we know? Current Levels of Delinquency

• 2002 UCR Arrest Information (lt18 years)
• 2.3 million arrests
• Arrests peaked in 1994, and declined thereafter
  (NCVS follow similar pattern)
• Violent Crime Index declined for 8th straight
  year (down 47 from 1994-2002)
• Murder rate from 1993-2002 down 74
• Self-Report 20 of 12th Graders report using an
  illicit drug in past 30 days.

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Self-Report ExampleMTF Use of Pot in Past 30
Days
Percent Using in Past 30 Days
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What does the NCVS say?

• Confined to Violent Crime
• Unsurprising? much violent juvenile offending
  unreported to police
• Average Crime Rate1980 to 1998
• UCR 5/100,000
• NCVS 44-75/100,000
• Why? (From victim survey)
• Only 20 reported to police
• Of those, only 50 lead to arrest

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NCVS Crime Trends

• The Broad Trend in UCR Violent Crime Index is
  similar to NCVS (Violent Crimes)
• Both decrease in early 1980s, followed by
  increase from mid-1980s to mid 1990s
• Both show substantial drop after mid 1990s
• Differences?
• NCVS offending drops more (60) in late 1990s
  than UCR (27)

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Why has juvenile crime declined?

• Juveniles have declined in the population?
• NO The proportion of juveniles has been
• increasing in the 1990s (echo boomers are coming)
• Poverty, Economy, Public Policy?
• No clear indications of This

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Super Predators Ideology and A Fools Errand

• William Bennett, John DiIulio and John Walter
  Body Count (1996)
• Super Predators Thesis
• Juvenile crime rates will continue to spiral out
  of control
• By 2010, some 270,000 SPs will wreck havoc on
  society
• TIME Magazine (1996) Ticking Time Bomb
• Advocated unsealing juvenile records, mandatory
  minimums, waiverget tough
• Legislation Follows (G.W. in Texas)