Endnotes
For more detailed analyses of the JCS national estimates and their accuracy see: Jeffrey A. Butts and Howard N. Snyder. 1995. A Study to Assess the Validity of the National Estimates Developed for the Juvenile Court Statistics Series. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice.
The annual series of reports from the FBI, Crime in the United States, provides information on arrests in offense categories that have become part of the common vocabulary of criminal justice statistics. The Crime in the United States series tracks changes in the general nature of arrests through the use of two indexes, the Violent Crime Index and the Property Crime Index. While not containing all violent or all property offenses, the indexes serve as a barometer of criminal activity in the United States.
The upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction is defined by statute in each State. See the Glossary of Terms section for a more detailed discussion on upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction. Case rates presented in this Report Control for State variations in juvenile population.
The percent change in the number of cases disposed may not be equal to the percent change in case rates, because of the changing size of the juvenile population.
Most youth in out-of home placements are also technically on formal probation. For this Report, however, case disposition is characterized by the most severe sanction. Therefore, cases resulting in an out-of-home placement are not included in the formal probation group.
In 1996, whites made up approximately 79% of the juvenile population. Nearly all youth of Hispanic ethnicity are included in the white racial category.
A number of other behaviors may be considered status offenses (e.g., curfew violations, tobacco offenses). All such offenses are combined within a "miscellaneous" category in this Report. Because of the heterogeneity of these offenses, these cases are not discussed independently. However, all totals include the "miscellaneous status offenses."
This Report presents analyses only of formally handled status offenses. See the Introduction to this Report for further explanation.
The remaining flow diagrams in this chapter present only percentages rather than estimates of case counts for the specific adjudication and disposition branches, because of the relatively low volumes of cases in many of the branches.
In 1996, whites made up approximately 79% of the juvenile population. Nearly all youth of Hispanic ethnicity are included in the white racial category.
County-level intercensal estimates were obtained from the Bureau of the Census for the years 1987-1996. The following data files were used:
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1994). 1980-1989 Preliminary Estimates of the Population of Counties by Age, Sex, and Race [machine-readable data file]. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1998). Estimates of the Population of Counties by Age and Gender: 1990-1996 [machine-readable data file]. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1998). Estimates of the Population of Counties by Age, Sex, and Race/Hispanic Origin: 1990-1996 [machine-readable data file]. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census.
"Other races" are Asians, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders. Most individuals of Hispanic ancestry are coded as white.
The only information used in this Report that cannot be aggregated by county is data contributed by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, which identifies only the district in which each case is handled. To utilize the Florida data, the aggregation criterion is relaxed to include districts. In 1996, there were 3,141 counties in the United States. By replacing Florida's counties with districts, the total number of aggregation units for this report becomes 3,085. There fore, while the report uses the term "county" to describe its aggregation unit, the reader should be aware of the exception made for Florida's data.
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