This publication of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provides statistics from 2021 on juveniles involved in the juvenile justice system.
This fact sheet, published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and based on the publication Juvenile Court Statistics 2021, summarizes 2021 statistics on juvenile justice issues. Topics covered include counts and trends; statistics by gender, age, and race; detention; intake decision; adjudication and disposition; and a chart showing case flow for delinquency cases in 2021. In 2021, juvenile courts in the United States handled 437,300 delinquency cases that involved youth charged with criminal law violations, 13% less than the number of cases handled in 2020. From 2005 through 2021, the number of delinquency cases declined 73%, with decreases in all four offense categories: property offense cases and public order offense cases (down 78% each), drug law violation cases (down 75%), and person offense cases (down 62%). In 2021, person offense cases accounted for the largest proportion (37%) of the delinquency caseload, followed by property offense cases (30%), public order offense cases (22%), and drug offense cases (11%).