Juvenile Arrests 2006

Results indicate that law enforcement agencies in the United States made an estimated 2.2 million arrest of persons under the age of 18. Juveniles accounted for 17 percent of all violent crime arrests and 26 percent of all property crime arrests in 2006. More specifically, 2005 and 2006 saw increases in juvenile arrests for murder and robbery but continued declines in arrests for forcible rape and aggravated assault. An analytical summary suggests that juvenile arrests for violent crimes increased modestly in 2005 and 2006; in comparison to 2004 and 2005, the number of arrests for crimes was relatively low. Juvenile arrests for property crimes continued to decline and in 2006 were at their lowest level since at least 1980. The proportion of female offenders entering the juvenile justice system has grown. Although juvenile arrests for violent crimes declined 22 percent for males between 1997 and 2006, they decreased only 12 percent for females in the same period. The Violent Crime Index rate for black juveniles in 2006 was 5 times the rate for white and American Indian juveniles and 12 times the rate for Asian juveniles. Although this represents an increase in the Black/white juvenile violent arrest rate disparity of 4-to-1 in 1999, it is less than that of the 1980s, when it was between 6- and 7-to-1. Data were collected from local law enforcement agencies across the country who report annually to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Tables and notes