Juvenile Court Statistics 2009

May 2012 National:

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Juvenile Court Statistics 2009 describes delinquency cases handled between 1985 and 2009 and petitioned status offense cases handled between 1995 and 2009 by U.S. courts with juvenile jurisdiction. National estimates of juvenile court delinquency caseloads in 2009 were based on analyses of 1,095,797 automated case records and court-level statistics summarizing an additional 49,692 cases. Estimates of status offense cases formally processed by juvenile courts in 2009 were based on analyses of 95,444 automated case-level records and court-level summary statistics on an additional 8,630 cases. The data used in the analyses were contributed to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive (the Archive) by more than 2,300 courts with jurisdiction over 82% of the juvenile population in 2009.

The first Juvenile Court Statistics report was published in 1929 by the U.S. Department of Labor and described cases handled by 42 courts during 1927. During the next decade, Juvenile Court Statistics reports were based on statistics cards completed for each delinquency, status offense, and dependency case handled by the courts participating in the reporting series. The Children's Bureau (within the U.S. Department of Labor) tabulated the information on each card, including age, gender, and race of the juvenile; the reason for referral; the manner of dealing with the case; and the final disposition of the case. During the 1940s, however, the collection of case-level data was abandoned because of its high cost. From the 1940s until the mid-1970s, Juvenile Court Statistics reports were based on simple, annual case counts reported to the Children's Bureau by participating courts. ..Source.. by Charles Puzzanchera, Benjamin Adams, Sarah Hockenberry, National Center for Juvenile Justice

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