Indicator: Neighborhood juvenile arrests
Definition
The rate of juveniles arrested in a city or county.
Recommended Metric(s)
Rate of juvenile arrests by city or county (number of arrests per 100,000 residents)
Type(s) of Data Needed
Administrative dataWhy it matters
Juvenile arrest is linked with an increased likelihood of high school dropout and adult incarceration.1 Although juvenile arrest rates dropped by almost 70 percent between 1999 and 2019, arrest rates among Black youth were still 2.4 times higher than among White youth.2 At a systems level, juvenile arrests can provide an indicator of overly punitive policing.3 Aggressive neighborhood policing tactics have been shown to reduce test scores for Black boys, even when police contact is indirect.4 Black people are five times more likely to report being unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity than White people, with 59 percent of Black men reporting this experience.5
What to know about measurement
Juvenile arrest data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program are publicly available and regularly reported.6 Examining juvenile arrest rates by type of offense (for example, drug abuse violation, curfew and loitering, disorderly conduct, etc.) can also help data users better understand community dynamics and inequities in policing. To assess inequities in the juvenile justice system, data users may also consider examining data on post-arrest handling of juvenile cases. (For example, users could examine whether youth are referred to juvenile court after arrest or diverted from formal court processing. Alternatively, they can look at whether youth are adjudicated delinquent and, if so, the type of dispositions they receive.)
E-W Case Studies
Source frameworks
This indicator appeared in three source frameworks reviewed for this report. Our proposed definition and measure align with the Urban Institute’s Boosting Upward Mobility framework, which suggests using this metric as a proxy for overly punitive policing.
References
- 1
Aizer, A., & Dyle, J. J. (2013). Juvenile incarceration, human capital and future crime: Evidence from randomly assigned judges. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w19102
- 2
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2019). Statistical briefing book: Racial and ethnic fairness. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/special_topics/qa11501.asp?qaDate=2019&text=yes
- 3
Turner, M. A., Acs, G., Brown, S., Solari, C. D., & Fudge, K. (2020). Boosting upward mobility: Metrics to inform local action summary. Urban Institute. https://www.urban.org/research/publication/boosting-upward-mobility-metrics-inform-local-action-summary
- 4
Legewie, J., & Fagan, J. (2019). Aggressive policing and the educational performance of minority youth. American Sociological Review, 84(2), 220–247. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419826020
- 5
Horowitz, J. M., Brown, A., & Cox, K. (2019, April 9). Race in America 2019: Public has negative views of the country’s racial progress; more than half say Trump has made race relations worse. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/
- 6
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d.). Uniform crime reporting program (UCR). Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS). https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr