All OJJDP publications may be viewed and downloaded on the publications section of the OJJDP website.

Patterns of Juvenile Court Referrals of Youth Born in 2000 (Bulletin)
NCJ 304627
National Report Series

This bulletin describes the official court referral histories of more than 160,000 youth from 903 counties in the United States. It focuses on the demographic and case processing characteristics of youth born in 2000 who were referred to juvenile court, those who were referred more than once, and those who entered the juvenile justice system for serious, violent, or repeat incidents.

OJJDP-funded researchers from the National Center for Juvenile Justice studied the patterns of juvenile court referrals, using data from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive. Among other findings, they determined that more than 60 percent of youth in the cohort did not return to juvenile court after their first referral.

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Trends in Youth Arrests for Violent Crimes (National Report Fact Sheet)
NCJ 305025

This fact sheet documents recent trends in arrests of youth for violent crimes, including murder, robbery, and aggravated assault, based on analyses of data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Although arrest patterns vary by demographic group and offense, the data reflect an overall decline since the mid-2000s.

By 2020, the number of violent crime arrests involving youth had reached a new low—78 percent lower than the peak in 1994 and half the number recorded in 2010. In 2020, law enforcement agencies made approximately 424,300 overall arrests involving youth younger than 18, which is 38 percent fewer than in 2019 and half the number of arrests made in 2015. Less than 1 in 10 of the overall arrests in 2020 was for a violent crime.

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