NCJ Number
180864
Date Published
June 2000
Length
118 pages
Annotation
This report describes the delinquency and status offense cases handled between 1988 and 1997 by U.S. courts with juvenile jurisdiction.
Abstract
National estimates of juvenile court caseloads in 1997 were based on analyses of approximately 917,400 automated case records and court-level statistics that summarize more than 217,400 additional cases. The data used in the analyses were contributed to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive by nearly 2,000 courts with jurisdiction over 71 percent of the juvenile population in 1997. First, the report presents national estimates of petitioned and nonpetitioned delinquency cases handled by courts with juvenile jurisdiction. Next, national estimates of petitioned status offense cases are presented. Together, these sections provide a detailed national portrait of juvenile court cases, including the offenses involved, sources of referral, detention practices, and dispositions ordered. A brief description of the statistical procedure used to generate these estimates is provided in the "Methods" section. The appendix presents a detailed list of the number of delinquency, status offense, and dependency cases handled by juvenile courts in 1997, by State and county. Table notes at the end of the appendix indicate the source of the data and the unit of count. 88 tables and 29 figures