trends in juvenile delinquency
During my presentation last week, I focused on the violent crimes that juveniles commit and how the percentages of offenses have changed over the last fifteen to twenty years. Some of my focus for this presentation dealt with violence within schools- the alarming rates of student on student violence, as well as student on faculty/staff violence. I also provided many arrest statistics for juveniles who committed violent crimes. Statistics that compared juvenile trends to adult trends and statistics comparing black and white children were also an aspect of the presentation. The final part of the project looked at what some states have done to combat juvenile violence and also how they are treating youths that are arrested for such offenses. The most important thing to understand is what crimes fall under the category of violent offenses. The are four components are 1) murders and nonnegligent manslaughter, 2) forcible rape, 3) aggravated assault, and 4) robbery. While I was doing the research for this, I found it difficult to find statistics for rape, assault, and robbery for juveniles. So much of my focus was on the homicide rates for youths. But during the last week I found some new nu
There are three points worth considering however. The first is, although juveniles have had an increase in violent crimes, they are still not responsible for most violent offenses committed. Based on FBI clearance data, only 9% of all violent crimes in 1986 were committed by juveniles (5% of all murders). That number grew to 13% in 1996, and 8% of all murders. The second point is that the late 1990's have seen the trend decline from its peak in 1993. However it is still at a much higher level than it was ten years ago. The 1996 arrest rate was 60% higher than that of 1987. And the third point deals with the debate of the increasing percentages. Is there A) more violent juveniles, or B) the same amount of criminals who are just committing more crimes? The National Center for Juvenile Justice investigated to see if there was a new breed of violent offenders or "super predators" as they call them. This study proved that there are no such things, just more of the juvenile population is brought into the justice system for violent acts. Aggravated Assault Rates- Declined 16% from 1994 to 1997 The next year that I used statistics for was 1997. This was the only area that I found statistics on all four components of violent crime. The area that had the highest juvenile arrest rate was robbery. Nearly 1/3 (30%) of all people arrested for robbery were under the age of 18. This was greatly higher than the other three. The number for forcible rape was 17% and juveniles were responsible for 14% of all homicides and aggravated assaults.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1938
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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