Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report

September 1999 -- NCJ 178257

Later version:
Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report
As America moves into the 21st century, we need to forge enlightened policies for our juvenile justice system—policies based on facts, not fears. While the pictures on our television screens and the photos on our front pages raise genuine concerns that we must address, this Report, drawing on reliable data and relevent research, provides a comprehensive and insightful view of the nature of juvenile crime and violence across the Nation.

Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report offers the Congress, State legislators and other State and local policymakers, professors and teachers, juvenile justice professionals, and concerned citizens solid answers to the most frequently asked questions about the nature of juvenile crime and victimization and about the justice system’s response.

Citing FBI and other data sources, the Report demonstrates that the rate of juvenile violent crime arrests— after peaking in 1994—has consistently decreased over the past several years. However, it has yet to return to the 1988 level, the year in which dramatic increases in juvenile crime arrests were first seen. The Report also summarizes data on school violence and describes the recent downturn in the violent victimization of youth.

New findings from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, providing the most current data on self-reported delinquent and antisocial behavior, are included in the Report, which also presents data from OJJDP’s new national Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement, summarizing key findings about the characteristics of juvenile offenders in custody.

In sum, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report, like its predecessors—Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report (1995), Juvenile Offenders and Victims: Update on Violence (1996 and 1997), and Juvenile Arrests 1997 (1998)—offers an indispensable resource for informed policy decisions that will shape the juvenile justice system in the 21st century by providing a clear view of juvenile crime and the justice system’s response at the end of the 20th century.

..more.. by Howard N. Snyder -and- Melissa Sickmund

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Juvenile population characteristics
Chapter 2: Juvenile victims
Chapter 3: Juvenile offenders
Chapter 4: Juvenile justice system structure and process
Chapter 5: Law enforcement and juvenile crime
Chapter 6: Juvenile courts and juvenile crime
Chapter 7: Juveniles in correctional facilities
Index