Juvenile arrests for property crimes remain stable

As with violent crime, the FBI assesses trends in the volume of property crimes by monitoring four offenses that are consistently reported by law enforcement agencies nationwide and are pervasive in all geographical areas of the country. These four crimes, which form the Property Crime Index, are burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

For the period from 1988 through 1997, during which juvenile violent crime arrests rose precipitously, juvenile property crime arrest rates (as measured by the Property Crime Index) remained relatively constant. In fact, the 1997 rate of approximately 2,300 arrests for every 100,000 youth in the United States between 10 and 17 years of age is the lowest since 1984.

In stark contrast to violent crimes, the juvenile arrest rate for property crimes remained relatively constant between 1980 and 1997

Chart

bullet The juvenile arrest rate for Property Crime Index offenses in 1997 was lower than at any point in the previous 13 years.

Data source: Analysis of arrest data from the FBI and population data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. [See data source note 1 for detail.]

Blue Line
Juvenile Arrests 1997 Juvenile Justice Bulletin   ·  December 1998