Characteristics of offenders and case processing of person offense cases in juvenile court for 2005 are presented.
Highlights of the fact sheet include: (1) person offenses accounted for 25 percent of all delinquency cases in 2005; (2) homicide was the most serious charge in 1,400 cases handled in 2005; (3) the majority of person offense cases involved charges of simple assault or aggravated assault, accounting for 81 percent of all person offense cases processed in 2005; (4) more than half (57 percent) of person offense cases in 2005 involved white youth, 41 percent involved African-American, 1 percent American-Indian, and 1 percent Asian youth; (5) compared with 1985, juveniles involved in person offense cases in 2005, were slightly younger and more likely to be female; (6) of the 429,500 person offense cases that juvenile courts disposed in 2005, 58 percent were handled formally, with 61 percent of petitioned cases resulting in the youth being adjudicated delinquent and 38 percent adjudicated not delinquent; and (7) in 25 percent of the 153,000 cases in which the youth was adjudicated delinquent, the most severe disposition imposed was placement out of the home in a residential facility. This fact was based on the report Juvenile Court Statistics 2005 that presents data on person offense cases handled in juvenile court for 2005. Tables and figures