This bulletin summarizes juvenile arrest data for 2010 obtained from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program.
The U.S. law enforcement agencies made 1.6 million arrests of individuals under age 18 in 2010, a 21-percent decline from 2001 and 9-percent decline since 2009. The number of juveniles arrested for violent crimes showed a 12-percent reduction from 2009, continuing a 4-year decline. This was the lowest number of juveniles arrested for violent crimes in at least 30 years. Compared with the number of adults arrested in 2010, juveniles composed a relatively small proportion of all arrests: approximately 1 in 10 for murder; approximately 1 in 4 for robbery, burglary, and disorderly conduct; and approximately 1 in 5 arrests for larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft. As in past years, youth of minority races/ethnicities were arrested at a disproportionate rate compared to their proportion of the general population. Users of these statistics are reminded that these arrest statistics report the number of arrests made by law enforcement agencies in a given year, not the number of individuals (It is possible that the same individuals were arrested more than once). Neither should the arrest statistics be equated with the number of crimes committed by juveniles. The arrest counts are shown by the ages of arrestees and offense categories contained in the arrest charges. The proportion of the U.S. population covered by the agencies reporting 2010 UCR data represented jurisdictions covering approximately 81 percent of the United States. 3 tables and 16 figures