America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2011
Youth Victims of Serious Violent Crimes
Violence frequently has serious and long-lasting impacts on young people who experience, witness, or feel threatened by it. In addition to the direct physical harm suffered by victims of serious violence, such violence can adversely affect young victims' mental health and development and increase the likelihood that they themselves will commit acts of serious violence.84, 85 Youth ages 12–17 were more than twice as likely as adults to be victims of serious violent crimes.86
Indicator Phys6: Youth victims of serious violent crimes: Rate of serious violent crime victimization of youth ages 12–17 by gender, 1980–2005 and 2007–2009
NOTE: Serious violent crimes include aggravated assault, rape, robbery (stealing by force or threat of violence), and homicide. Homicide data were not available for 2009 at the time of publication. The number of homicides for 2008 is included in the overall total for 2009. In 2008, homicides represented less than 1 percent of serious violent crime, and the total number of homicides of juveniles has been relatively stable over the last decade. Because of changes, 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 victimization rates are not comparable to other years and cannot be used for yearly trend comparisons. Some 2006–2008 estimates have been revised since previous publication in America's Children due to updating of more recent homicide numbers. See Criminal Victimization, 2006, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=765. Reporting standards were not met for the 2007 estimate for females.
SOURCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey and Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Supplementary Homicide Reports.
- In 2009, the rate at which youth were victims of serious violent crimes was 10 crimes per 1,000 youth ages 12–17. A total of 233,800 such crimes occurred in 2009.
- Serious violent crime involving youth victims stayed about the same in 2008 and 2009. However, the rate is still significantly lower than its peak in 1993. In 1993, the serious violent crime victimization rate was 44 per 1,000 youth, compared with the 2009 rate of 10 per 1,000 youth.
- In 2009, White, non-Hispanic youth were as likely as Hispanic youth to be victims of a serious violent crime.
- Older youth (ages 15–17) were as likely to be victims of a serious violent crime as younger youth (ages 12–14) were in 2009.
84 Turner, H.A., Finkelhor, D., and Ormrod, R. (2006). The effect of lifetime victimization on the mental health of children and adolescents. Social Science & Medicine, 62, 13–27.
85 Schreck, C.J., Stewart, E.A., and Osgood, D.W. (2008). A reappraisal of the overlap of violent offenders and victims. Criminology, 46 (4), 871–905.
86 Snyder, H.N., and Sickmund, M. (2006). Juvenile offenders and victims: 2006 national report (Publication No. NCJ 212906). Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.