NCJ Number
138740
Date Published
1992
Length
11 pages
Annotation
A recent report, Juvenile Justice Statistics, 1989, presents national estimates of petitioned and nonpetitioned delinquency cases and petitioned status offense cases disposed of in 1989 by courts with juvenile jurisdiction.
Abstract
The findings show that, compared to 1985 figures, there was an increase of 11 percent in the rate of juvenile delinquency cases per capita. The per capita rate of juveniles charged with personal offenses increased by 23 percent while the rate of drug offenses increased 6 percent. In 58 percent of delinquency cases prosecuted in 1989, the youth were charged with property offenses, including larceny and burglary. Twenty-two percent of delinquent offenders stayed in secure juvenile detention facilities at some point between referral to the court and disposition; there was an increase of 13 percent in the use of secure detention for juveniles from 1985 to 1989. During the reporting period, the courts handled half of their juvenile cases formally with the filing of a petition and waived youth to adult criminal courts in 2.7 percent of these cases. 11 tables, 5 figures, 5 notes, and 11 references