Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1996 Update on Violence

• NCJ Number: 159107
• Author(s): Howard N. Snyder; Melissa Sickmund; Eileen Poe-Yamagata
• Date Published: February 1996
• Length: 40 pages
• Agencies: OJJDP
• Publication Type: Survey

Annotation

This report presents statistics on juvenile victims of violence and violent juvenile offenders, based on information from the FBI, the General Accounting Office, and other sources.

Abstract

The data reveal that the number of youth under age 18 who were murdered increased 82 percent between 1984 and 1994; juveniles were murdered at a rate of 7 per day in 1994. One in five were known to be filled by a juvenile offender. The increase in juvenile homicide victimizations during this period was completely firearm-related. In addition, a substantial proportion of students in grades 6- 12 reported high levels of violent crime, weapons, and gangs in their schools. Moreover, child protective service agencies received 2 million reports of child abuse and neglect in 1993. In 1994, police agencies made more than 2.7 million arrests of persons under age 18. Six percent of these arrests were for a violent crime index offense. Females accounted for one in seven of the juvenile violent crime arrests. Juveniles accounted for 19 percent of all violent crime arrests and 14 percent of all violent crimes cleared by law enforcement. Juvenile arrest rates for weapons law violations nearly doubled between 1987 and 1994. Figures, tables, list of OJJDP publications, and 33 references