Juvenile Arrest Case Study

“The Juvenile Arrests 2001 bulletin summarizes and analyzes national and state juvenile arrest data derived from the Federal Bureau of Investigation report Crime in the United States 2001” (Snyder, 2003, p. 1). The FBI tracks four offenses in its Violent Crime Index, which are, murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault (Snyder, 2003). However, this paper will summarize the key points of the Juvenile Arrests 2001 bulletin by addressing the overall decrease in juvenile arrests and the implications for juvenile females and minorities. In addition, an assessment of the tracking of juvenile arrests as a method of measuring the amount of and trends in juvenile crime will conclude the paper. After analyzing the data gathered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the arrest rate in the Violent Crime Index offenses shows to have decreased drastically in 2001. In fact, the Violent Crime Index rate shows juvenile arrest to be at the lowest since 1983 (Snyder, 2003). For example, the juvenile arrest rate for murder declined 70% from 1993 to 2001 meaning out of 3,800 juvenile murder arrests
For example, in 2001, law enforcement agencies arrested 645,000 juvenile females (Snyder, 2003). Nevertheless, between black juveniles and white juveniles a difference exists in violent crime arrest rates. For example, in 2001 the Violent Crime Index arrest rate showed that black juveniles were considered for three times more arrest than white and Indians as well as to seven times more arrest than Asian juveniles (Snyder, 2003). In fact, “of all the juvenile violent crime arrests in 2001, 55% were Caucasian offenders, 43% were African American, and only 1% was Asian” (Snyder, 2003, p. 8). Therefore, when analyzing the data presented total juvenile arrests consisted of a Caucasian majority followed by African American juveniles and other