• One of every four violent crime victims known to law enforcement is a juvenile, and most of these victims are female.

• More than one-third of juvenile victims of violent crime known to law enforcement are under age 12.

• About two-thirds of violent crimes known to law enforcement with juvenile victims occur in a residence.

• Few statutory rapes reported to law enforcement involve both juvenile victims and juvenile offenders.

• The majority of victims were females (95 percent) —most of whom were ages 14 or 15. Male  offenders were much older than their female victims. For example, almost half (48 percent) of the offenders of 17-year-old females were over age 24—at least a 7-year difference in age.

• One-third of all kidnap victims known to law enforcement were younger than 18. The peak age for being kidnapped is 20 for females and 2 for males. The kidnappings of children younger than 12 were most likely to be committed by a family member – primarily a parent. Among female victims ages 15-17, about two-thirds were kidnapped by an acquaintance and one-quarter were kidnapped by a stranger.

• Annually, about 19 in 1,000 children below the age of 18 are missing from caretakers. Only a small fraction of missing children were abducted (about 10 in 100) – most by family members (8 in 10). Runaway youth account for nearly half of all missing children.

• Teens ages 15–17 accounted for 68 percent of the estimated 1.7 million youth who were gone  from their homes either because they had run away or because their caretakers threw them out. Fewer than 4 in 10 of all runaway/thrown away youth were truly missing – their parents knew where they were staying. Most youth who ran away or were thrown out of their homes were gone less than a week (77 percent).

• In 2003, child protective services agencies received an estimated 2.9 million referrals alleging that children were abused or neglected. An estimated 5.5 million children were included in these referrals. This translates into a rate of 39 referrals for every 1,000 children younger than 18 in the U.S. population.

• In 2003, child protective services agencies conducted investigations or assessments in 68 percent of referrals or an estimated 1.9 million reports involving more than 3.4 million children.

• Nationally, 26 percent of investigated reports were substantiated, 4 percent were indicated, and 57 percent were unsubstantiated.

• Neglect was the most common form of maltreatment for victims in 2003. Law enforcement / justice system personnel accounted for substantial proportions of victims reported to CPS for neglect (26 percent), sexual abuse (26 percent), and psychological maltreatment (30 percent).

• Medical personnel reported 27 percent of medical neglect victims. Nearly half of all physical abuse victims were reported by education (22 percent) or law enforcement/justice system (21 percent) personnel.

• The vast majority of perpetrators were parents (80 percent), including birth parents, adoptive parents, and stepparents. Parents were less likely to commit sexual abuse than were other types of perpetrators.

• Reported child maltreatment fatalities typically involve infants and toddlers and result from neglect. Most child maltreatment fatalities involved families without a recent history with CPS.

• Reunification with parents was the most common outcome for children exiting foster care. However, the number of children adopted from public foster care increased 40 percent from 1998 to 2003. Most children adopted from foster care were adopted by their foster parents.

Source: Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report; The United States Department of Justice

• The juvenile population is increasing similarly to other segments of the population. In fact, population projections indicate that the juvenile proportion of the U.S. population will hold constant through 2050.

• The racial character of the juvenile population is changing. The Hispanic portion of the juvenile population will increase. The growth in the U.S. juvenile population (ages 0 through 17) between 2000 and 2020 will be far greater for Hispanic (58 percent) and Asian (59 percent) juveniles than for Native American (16 percent), Black (9 percent) or white (7 percent) juveniles.

• Although the proportion of juveniles living below the poverty level has declined substantially from its peak in 1993, it is still considerably larger than that of older Americans.

• Seven out of 10 juveniles in the U.S. live with married parents.

Source: Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report; The United States Department of Justice

• The decline in Black juveniles in custody led the overall 1997-2003 custody population decline. The number of Black youth in custody dropped 12 percent. In comparison, the number of white youth held dropped 5 percent.

• Even with the large drop in the Black custody population, the 2003 custody rate was highest for Black youth (754 for every 100,000). The rates were lower for Asian (113), white (190), Hispanic (348), and American Indian youth (496).

• On the day of the 2003 data collection, 34 percent of committed offenders and 3 percent of detained offenders had been in placement 6 months since their admission. The median time in placement thus was 15 days for detained offenders, 105 days for offenders committed to public facilities, and 121 days for those committed to private facilities.

• JRFC data suggest that crowding is a problem in a significant number of residential facilities, but there are signs of improvement. In 2002, 30 percent of the facilities reported residential populations at the limit of available standard beds, and 6 percent had more residents than standard beds. Facilities that were at or over capacity held 34 percent of residents in 2002, down from 40 percent in 2000.

• Most juvenile offenders are held in facilities that screen for mental health needs and suicide risk. Facilities that had an in-house mental health professional screen all youth for mental health needs held 57 percent of juvenile offenders. Facilities that screened all youth for suicide risk held 88 percent of juvenile offenders. 

• Deaths of juveniles in custody remain rare. In 2002, 24 juvenile facilities reported a total of 26 deaths. In comparison, facilities reported 30 deaths to the 2000 JRFC, and in 1994 juvenile facilities reported 45 deaths of juveniles in custody. If death rates for the custody population were the same as for the general population – taking into consideration age, sex, race, ethnicity, and cause of death—more than 60 deaths would have been expected for the 2002 custody juvenile population. This is more than double the actual number of deaths that were reported to JRFC.

• Youth entering juvenile facilities are at greater risk of suicide than similar youth in the U.S. population. The suicide rate in juvenile facilities in 2002 was nearly equal to the rate for similar youth in the U.S. population. While any suicide while in custody is unacceptable, these two points imply that while in custody a youth’s risk of suicide is actually reduced.

• Officials reported more than 2,800 sexual violence allegations in juvenile facilities in 2004-05 in 10 were substantiated. Girls were more likely than boys to be sexually victimized. The rate of sexual allegations was higher for state-operated facilities (22.6 for every 1,000 beds) than for local and private facilities (16.5 for every 1,000 beds).

• Reoffending data from studies of juveniles released from state incarceration found that rearrest rates were substantially higher than rates based on other measures of recidivism.

• Across studies with a 12-month follow-up period, the average rate of rearrest for a delinquent or criminal offense was 55 percent, the average reconviction or re-adjudication rate was 33 percent, and the average reincarceration or reconfinement rate was 24  percent.

• On a typical day in 2004, about 7,000 persons younger than 18 were  inmates in adult jails. Nearly 9 in 10 were being held as adults.

• Between 1990 and 1999 the under-18 jail population increased more than 300 percent while the adult jail population rose 48 percent. Between 1999 and 2004, the adult jail population increased 19 percent, while the under-18 jail population dropped 25 percent. The decline was driven by the reduction in the number of under-18 inmates held as juveniles.

• Between 1997 and 2004, while prison populations grew, the number of prisoners under age 18 fell 54 percent.

Source: Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report; The United States Department of Justice