The Office of the Juvenile and Delinquency Prevention in the year 2009 released a report detailing juvenile arrest information for the year 2008 (Puzzanchera, 2009). This report based its findings on the latest data from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s yearly report. In general, the report reviews US juvenile arrests carried out in the year 2008. According to the report, the US police arrested 2.11 million individuals below the age of 18 years in the year 2008. This report revealed that there was a decline in the number of arrests as compared to the previous year’s report. In this regard, this paper summarizes and analyzes the article Juvenile Arrests 2008.
According to the report, juvenile arrests in the year 2008 accounted for 16% of all the individuals arrested in the same year (Puzzanchera, 2009). As compared to the previous years’ reports, juvenile arrests declined in the year 2008. Concerning the FBI’s reports, the decline in juvenile arrests has been witnessed between the years 1994 and 2004. However, after the year 2004, the number of arrests increased for the next 2 years. Following the year 2006, a decline in the arrests was reported. Similarly, in the year 2008, the number of arrests was still low. As compared with the year 2007’s report, there was a 3% decrease in juvenile arrest in the year 2008. According to the article, the number of juvenile arrests in the year 2008 was less than the arrest made in any year in the 1990s.
As indicated in the article, there was a decrease in the arrests associated with violent crimes. The number of juvenile arrests related to violent crimes was relatively low during the year 2008. Despite this decrease, it was reported that there was an increase in the number of arrests related to drug offenses and simple assaults. Notably, juvenile arrests related to drug abuse violations and other simple assaults increased among female juveniles. The number of juvenile arrests attributed to larceny-theft rose by 8% in the year 2008. Similarly, during the same year, the number of arrests accredited to burglary rose by 3% as compared with the previous year (Puzzanchera, 2009).
In the year 2008, 78% of the American youth population below the age of eighteen consisted of whites. The other 32% consisted of blacks and other minority groups. During the same period, it was found that the black and other minority groups’ youths were a majority of those arrested. However, as compared to the data collected in the 1980s the arrests in black youths evaluated with the white youths decreased significantly. These records imply that the earlier cases that led the minority groups’ juveniles to engage in crimes might have been addressed (Shoemaker, 2009).
With respect to the report, in the year 2008, there was a decrease in the number of male juvenile arrests. On the other hand, there was an increase in the number of female juvenile arrests (Morgan, 2010). According to the report, females represented 30% of all juvenile arrests. This implies that the number of juvenile female offenders increased in the same year. According to the data collected, arrests in female juveniles attributed to robbery between the years 1999 to 2008 were 38 % as compared to 24% percent of male juvenile arrests. Equally, at the same time the number of female youths apprehended for simple assault augmented by 12%. On the other hand, the number of male youth apprehended decreased by 6%. Another serious offense that reported an increase in the number of female juvenile arrests in the same period is larceny-theft. According to the data collected, the number of arrests associated with this crime increased by 4% for females and decreased by 29% for males. In the adult arrests, it was found that the number of female arrests increased while the number of male arrests decreased. According to the report, female arrests rose by 17% between the year 1999 and 2008.
Throughout the article, juvenile arrests were assessed and measured using a specific assessment method. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting collected the data used in the assessment. Through the method, juvenile arrests were arrived at by dividing the number of arrests recorded for individuals aged between 10 and 17 with the total number of individuals within the age bracket in the whole population. In all the tables used, the number of arrests refers to the number of juvenile arrests for every 100, 000 juveniles. It should be noted that most of the data collected in the data were from juveniles aged between 10 and 17 years. Children under the age of 10 were excluded from the study because they represented 1% of all the juvenile arrests recorded. When interpreting the report findings, readers should take into consideration that the rates in some states were based on partial information. Readers should realize that some arrests made in some states were never reported to the FBI. This implies that these arrests were never included in the study.
References
Morgan, K. O. (2010). Crime state rankings 2010: crime across America. Washington, D.C: CQ Press.
Puzzanchera, C. (2009). Juvenile Arrests 2008. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 4(1), 1-12.
Shoemaker, D. J. (2009). Juvenile delinquency. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.