NCJ Number
93559
Date Published
1984
Length
22 pages
Annotation
Notable aspects of the American juvenile justice system are the large number of juveniles processed, the diverse number of juvenile justice systems throughout the Nation, and the trend toward processing fewer offenders who will tend to be dangerous recidivists.
Abstract
The size of the American juvenile justice system is revealed in data that show in excess of 600,000 arrests of juveniles under the age of 15 in 1980; 2 million arrests of persons under the age of 18; and about 4 million arrests of those under the age of 21. Further, the systems processing these juveniles are numerous and diverse. Each of the multitude of juvenile justice systems in America has its own subsystems and methodologies as well as policies for addressing crime and delinquency. There are some 12,000 law enforcement agencies with personnel numbering from one to thousands of officers. Administratively, these agencies are at local, county, regional, State, and Federal levels of government. Similarly, the judicial system is organized so that judicial structures exist at the same levels of government. The correctional systems are equally varied, from unified State systems responsible for both institutional and noninstitutional organizations to correctional agencies at the local level. The future of the American juvenile justice system is likely to be affected by several important trends. Demographers are predicting a reduction in the number and percentage of youth of crime-prone age in the United States between now and the year 2,000. Also, economic trends portend a shortage of government resources, while legal trends have afforded greater attention to the rights of juveniles in legal processes. These trends suggest that the juvenile justice system will focus its limited resources on the more dangerous repeat juvenile offenders, and the number of options for processing them will be reduced. Two notes, 14 references and tabular data are supplied. (Author data modified).