Research Spotlight Shows Broad Impact of COVID-19 on Juvenile Court Caseload

The National Center for Juvenile Justice has released "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Nation's Juvenile Court Caseload." This research spotlight presents 2020 data on case processing characteristics of delinquency and petitioned status offense cases and compares that data to the prior 3 years. Data from 2021 are also included.

Key findings include:

• The number of delinquency cases decreased from  58,200 in February 2020 to 26,500 in April 2020.
• The number of delinquency cases handled by juvenile courts after the onset of the pandemic remained at least 21 percent below the average monthly number of cases handled from 2017-2019.
• Fewer cases were judicially waived to criminal court at the onset of the pandemic.
• The number of status offense cases handled by juvenile courts decreased at the onset of the pandemic.

This report draws on data from the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, funded by OJJDP and managed by the National Institute of Justice.  

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RESOURCES:

• See OJJDP's Statistical Briefing Book for additional information on juvenile court case processing.
• Follow OJJDP on X formerly known as Twitter and Facebook.