America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2009
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 have been involved in a crime.
Indicator BEH5: Rate of serious violent crimes by youth perpetrators ages 12–17, selected years 1980–2005 and 2007
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. Data from 2006 are not included because, due to changes in methodology, 2006 crime perpetration rates are not comparable to other years and cannot be used for yearly trend comparisons. See Criminal Victimization, 2006, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cv06.htm.
SOURCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey and Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Supplementary Homicide Reports.
- In 2007, the serious violent crime offending rate was 11 crimes per 1,000 juveniles ages 12–17, with a total of 277,000 such crimes involving juveniles. This is lower than the rate in 2005, and it is substantially lower than the 1993 peak rate of 52 crimes per 1,000 juveniles ages 12–17.
- Since 1980, serious violent crime involving youth offenders has ranged from 19 percent of all serious violent crimes in 1982 to 26 percent in 1993, the peak year for youth violence. In 2007, 17 percent of all such victimizations reportedly involved a juvenile offender.
- In over half of all serious violent juvenile crimes reported by victims in 2007, more than one offender was involved in the incident. Because insufficient information exists to determine the ages of each individual offender when a crime is committed by more than one perpetrator, 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.
