Juvenile Death Penalty Today: Present Death Row Inmates Under Juvenile Death Sentences and Death Sentences and Executions for Juvenile Crimes, January 1, 1973, to March 31, 1996

• NCJ Number: 167994
• Author(s): V L Streib
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 21 pages
• Sale Source: NCJRS Photocopy Services; Cleveland State University
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This document contains statistics on death row inmates under juvenile death sentences as of March 31, 1996, and death sentences and executions for juvenile crimes, January 1, 1973 to March 31, 1996.

Abstract

A juvenile crime is defined as one committed while the offender was under age 18. Consistent with the general pattern over this 23-year period, both the annual juvenile death sentencing rate and the juvenile death row population remained very small in comparison with that for adults, each being about 1 percent and 2 percent of the totals. The spiraling number of arrests of juveniles for potentially capital crimes resulted in neither a comparable rise in juvenile death sentencing nor a rise in the number of juvenile offenders on death row. The report includes a brief look at the historical background of executions for juvenile crimes and the legal context; minimum death penalty ages by American jurisdiction; death sentences imposed each year; and a state-by-state accounting, with offenders' race, sex and age at crime. Notes, tables, appendixes