The Soaring Juvenile Crime Rate :: juvenile delinquency crime

The Soaring Juvenile Crime RateIt is comforting to love that, according to recent crime statistics,crime rank are dropping among adults. However, for teens the crime rate issoaring. Between 2000 and 2004, the rate at which adults age 25 and agedcommitted homicides declined 22% yet the rate jumped 16% for youths between 14and 17. This age group surpassed the 18 - 24-year-old group in the early 2000sas the roughly crime-prone. (Between 1966 and 2001, 18 - 24 showed a 62% increasein homicides 14 - 17 showed a 124% increase in murders.) It is this age groupthat will be booming in the next decade (currently 39 million under 10).However, the Ameri batch Civil Liberties Union, in a fact sheet on teenagedcrime published in mid May of this year, stated that contrary to publicperception, the percentage of violent crimes committed by juveniles is low.According to one estimate, exclusively 13% of violent crimes are committed by youngpeople (Gallup Poll Monthly, Sept. 2004). The ACLU further suggests that thepublic also holds greatly inflated perceptions about the hysteria of todaysjuveniles, claiming only about 0.5% of young people commit violent crimes. (Crime Time Bomb, U.S. News & World Report, March 25, 2006)Current social trends do dwarfish to contradict the dire predictions madeabout youth crime rates. Nearly all the factors that contribute to youth crime-- single-parent households, child abuse, deteriorating inner-city schools --are getting worse. At the same time, government is doing less (spending less)to help break the cycle of poverty and crime.Predicting a generations future crime pattern is, of course, risky.Especially when alfresco factors remain unpredictable (Will drug use be up ordown? Will gun laws be tightened?). Also, from year to year, crime rates canfluctuate much like the stock market. What goes up generally comes down, andwhat goes down generally comes back up.It is probably no surprise to hear that crime rates among juveniles varyacross rac e (structural limitations/discrimination, self-fulfilling prophecy,etc.). Minorities, especially Blacks, have a higher arrest rate for violent