Percent of serious violent victimizations committed by youth ages 12-17, 1980-2019

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Serving Children, Families, and Communities

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Other Violent Crime

Q:	What proportion of serious violent crimes are committed by youth?
A:	Youth ages 12 to 17 were involved in about one of every eleven (9.1%) serious violent victimizations in 2019.

Note: Serious violent crime includes aggravated assault, rape, and robbery reported to the NCVS that involved at least one offender perceived by the victim to be 12–17 years of age, plus the number of homicides reported to the police that involved at least one juvenile offender. Homicide data were not available for 2019 at the time of publication. The number of homicides for 2018 is included in the overall total for 2019.

NA: Due to a sample increase and redesign in 2016, estimates in 2016 are not comparable to estimates for other years.
Due to methodological changes in the 2006 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), use caution when comparing 2006 criminal perpetration estimates to those for other years.

The percent is the number of crimes (aggravated assault, rape, and robbery) reported to the NCVS that involved at least one offender perceived by the victim to be 12–17 years of age, plus the number of homicides reported to the police that involved at least one juvenile offender divided by all reported violent crimes. Because of changes made in the victimization survey, data prior to 1992 are adjusted to make them comparable with data collected under the redesigned methodology.

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The Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) asks a nationally representative sample of persons ages 12 and older about violent crimes in which they were the victim. Since 1973, the NCVS has been a national barometer of crime trends.
The proportion of youth perpetrated serious violent crimes reported by victims that involved youth ages 12 to 17 peaked in 1993 at 26.4% and reached a then historic low of 9.7% in 2011. In 2019, 9.1% of all serious violent victimizations involved youth ages 12 to 17.
The proportion of youth perpetrated serious violent crimes reported by victims that involved multiple offenders ranged from a high of 64.8% in 1982 to a low of 30.2% in 2019.

Internet citation: OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. Online. Available: https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/offenders/qa03202.asp?qaDate=2019. Released on February 24, 2022.

Adapted from Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics' America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being. [Table BEH5 located at http://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables.asp]