Recent National Trends in Serious Juvenile Crime (From Violent Juvenile Offenders - An Anthology, P 5-30, 1984, Robert A Mathias et al, ed. See NCJ-95108)

• NCJ Number: 95164
• Author(s): P A Strasburg
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 26 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Available on microfiche as NCJ-95108.

Annotation

The picture of American juvenile delinquency conveyed by official arrest statistics has changed little over the years.

Abstract

Adolescents are significantly more crime-prone than adults, but juvenile violence is rare in comparison to juvenile theft. Among the young arrested for violence, males, blacks, and urban dwellers are heavily overrepresented. Nothing in recent statistics suggests that these general patterns are going to change soon. The National Crime Surveys show that juvenile violence is considerably less serious in the aggregate than violence by adults, that the victims of juveniles are predominantly other juveniles who often have a prior relationship to their attackers, and that the elderly are not disproportionately singled out as victims. Thus, the nature and consequences of juvenile crime do not conform to the terrifying images portrayed in newspapers and on television. In fact, today the curve of juvenile crime appears to be flattening out. An historical view suggests that the recent wave of juvenile crime -- due to modernization, war, and a large youth population -- is a temporary reversal of a more powerful trend toward reduced violence in society. Society's power to reduce crime through harsh repressive measures is limited. The wiser course seems to be to hold fast to civilizing values while riding out the wave of violence. Footnotes and 24 references are included.