Juvenile Intakes
Juvenile intakes -- incidents in which a juvenile is alleged to have broken the law -- are difficult to compare across regions because of differences in legal policy and types of behavior. Virginia ranks well below the national average on the juvenile arrest rate for property and violent crimes.
Why is This Important?
Juvenile intakes provide a measure of problem behaviors among adolescents in a community, but intakes should not be interpreted as equaling the amount or seriousness of juvenile crime.
Intake data includes all offenses for which a child is brought to the Court Service Unit -- either by the police or via complaints brought by parents, neighbors or others who do not call the police for an arrest.
How is Virginia Doing?
In 2007 Virginia's juvenile property crime arrest rate was 784 per 100,000 population aged 10-17 -- the 6th lowest in the United States. The national average was 1,292; Maryland (1,876), North Carolina (1,431) and Tennessee (1,249) also all saw higher arrest rates for juvenile property crimes than Virginia. West Virginia had the lowest property crime rate at 368.
Virginia's juvenile arrest rate for violent crime in 2007 was 146 per 100,000 population aged 10-17 -- ranking the Commonwealth 14th lowest nationally. The U.S. average was 301 arrests for violent crime per 100,000 youths. Virginia's rate was lower than all its peer states: In 2006 Maryland saw 548 arrests per 100,000 youths, North Carolina 318 and Tennessee 332. West Virginia had the lowest violent crime rate at 42.
Virginia's juvenile intake rate has decreased over the last several years. The lowest rate in 2008 was in the Northern region (53.4), followed by the Eastern region, with 69.6 intakes per 1,000 youth ages 10 to 17. The highest rate was in the West Central region, with 90.8 intakes per 1,000 youth.
What Influences Juvenile Intakes?
Policy and practice within each local justice system have a major influence on juvenile intakes. For example, some police departments have very strong community policing programs, where an officer may use alternatives to formal arrest with a youth seen or caught committing a crime -- informal counseling, in-home visits with the parents, etc. In other localities, law enforcement policy may be to take formal action on every alleged criminal activity. In other localities, strained resources may mean that many minor offenses go unreported, especially if more serious juvenile crime is prevalent.
What is the State's Role?
Juvenile intake services are provided through 32 state-operated and three locally operated Court Service Units.
Data Definitions and Sources
Arrest rates: US Department
of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/crime/qa05103.asp?qaDate=2007&text=
(updated annually in October)
Intakes: Virginia Department
of Juvenile Justice, Research and Evaluation
Unit, by special request from the Juvenile
Tracking System on March 3, 2009.
(updated annually)
Data for Fairfax City are included with Fairfax County.
Population data for calculating rates are from Puzzanchera, C., Finnegan, T. and Kang, W. (2006). "Easy Access to Juvenile Populations" Online: www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/ezapop
Juvenile population in Virginia ranges from age 10 through age 21 (with 18 - 21 year olds included only if they were under juvenile justice supervision prior to their 18th birthday).
Notes: Intake is the process where a juvenile is brought before a Court Service Unit (CSU) for one or more alleged violations of law. At Intake, a specially trained officer determines whether there is enough evidence that the child violated a law, the appropriateness of release and/or referral without formal action (diversion), or formal action via petition.
If formal action is taken, the officer also determines whether the juvenile should be released to a parent or another responsible adult, placed in a detention alternative, or detained in a secure detention facility pending a court hearing.
People may be more familiar with arrest data. However, arrest data measures police activity and policy. In Virginia arrest reporting guidelines require that juvenile arrests are counted if an adult in the same situation would be arrested. This would exclude status offenses -- offenses that would not be crimes if committed by an adult (e.g., running way from home, truancy, etc.).
Following national guidelines, Virginia has since 1999 been gradually converting to an incident-based reporting format. While most police agencies are now using the incident-based system, the data across years may not be fully comparable until 2010 or later. Consequently, the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice now uses juvenile intake data rather than arrest data.
See the Data Sources and Updates Calendar for a detailed list of the data resources used for indicator measures on Virginia Performs.
