Juvenile Crime Up, Charging as an Adult Down

A new report, Juvenile Court Statistics 2006-2007, by the National Center for Juvenile Justice, found a significant decrease in the number of juvenile cases being transferred to adult court by a judge. It is not clear whether the report took into consideration those cases that are required by legislation to be filed in adult court without review by a judge. In Pennsylvania, there are a number of offenses that require charging a juvenile as an adult.

In 1994, 13,100 juvenile cases were transferred to adult court. In 2007, 8,500 cases were transferred.

The troubling aspect of the report--if there is a correlation between juvenile crime and charging as an adult--is that juvenile violent crime has increased between 2003 and 2007. Robbery is up 35-percent. Homicide is up 5-percent. These two categories have pushed violent crime up 13-percent.

To read the full report: http://www.ncjjservehttp.org/ncjjwebsite/pdf/jcsreports/jcs2007.pdf