Promise 5
Delinquency Prevention and Juvenile Justice Reform
Facts & Figures
Vulnerable Youth
- In 2008, 47,166 students dropped out of school in the state of Florida.1
- In 2007, 92,000 teens in Florida were not enrolled in school, were not working, and had no degree beyond high school.2
- Recent research shows that the brain continues to develop into a person’s early 20s, with the last part of brain development in frontal lobe, the control center of planning, impulse control, and reasoning.
Juvenile Offenders
- Most juvenile offenders are male and white, ages are evenly split between those 13-15 and those 16-18 years old, yet black juveniles are held in residential custody in the United States at twice the rate of Hispanics and five times the rate for whites.
- While African-American youth, ages 10-17 make up 21% of Florida’s population they constitute 49% of youth held in secure detention, 46% of the youth committed for delinquency, 51% of youth transferred to adult court, and 72% of youth in Florida’s prisons
- Just more than 31% of the juveniles referred to the Department of Juvenile Justice are girls. The number of girls referred for delinquency in FY 2007-08 was 28,113, which was a 3% increase over the previous fiscal year.3
- There is evidence that the majority of juvenile offenders come from poor family situation and many are fathers themselves, many report being around violence all of their lives.
- A 1993 national study showed, on average, youth in correctional facilities were reading at a fourth grade reading level.
- In 2005, 78.3% of girls and 54.2% of boys in juvenile detention were found to have mental disorders, yet only 41.3% of girls and 12.9% of boys receive treatment.4
- In studies conducted of the worst juvenile offenders, 60% were found to have been victims of child abuse and/or neglect.
Juvenile Justice
- Nearly 93,000 youth--295 per 100,000 youth in the general population—were held in juvenile residential placement facilities on the 2006 census date. Of this number, 88,137 were held for delinquency offenses, and 4,717 for status offenses.5
- In 1998, 1.7 million children were sent to juvenile court, whether the crimes were serious or petty.6
- Nationwide it has become easier to transfer juveniles to adult court, in Florida a child as young as 14 can be tried as an adult.
- A 1996 study in Florida found that youth transferred to adult prisons had approximately a 30% higher recidivism rate than youth who stayed in the juvenile system.
- In 2001, 23 children under age 18 were killed in firearm homicides in Florida, compared with 30 in 2003.
- In 2005, 120,082 children under age 18 were arrested in Florida, 6,255 were for aggravated assault and 2,766 were for possession of weapons.7
- A 2001 census of juvenile offenders showed 6,776 children in juvenile correction facilities in Florida.
1 KidsCount.org. High School Dropouts 2007.
http://datacenter.kidscount.org
2 KidsCount.Org. Teens not attending school and not working (Number) – 2007
http://datacenter.kidscount.org
3 Florida Dept of Juvenile Justice. Five Year Juvenile Delinquency Trends and Conditions. 2007-08 http://www.djj.state.fl.us
4 Linda A. Teplin, PhD et al. “Detecting Mental Disorder in Juvenile Detainees: Who Receives Services.” American Journal of Public Health. 2005 October; 95(10): 1773–1780. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov
5 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs. “How OJJDP is serving children, families, and communities: Annual Report.” 2008. http://www.ncjrs.gov (.pdf)
6 Lynn Ellsworth, Ph.D. The Eckerd Family Foundation. “Better Treatment and Aftercare
for Delinquent Youth.” 2003. http://www.eckerdfamilyfoundation.org (.pdf)
7 Federal Bureau of Investigation. Crime in the United States 2005. http://www.fbi.gov
*For full list of sources please contact Children’s Campaign at campaign@iamforkids.org*