U.S. Juvenile Crime Growing Swiftly, Report Warns

America’s children are turning to crime at such an alarming rate that juvenile arrests may double by 2010, the Justice Department said Thursday.

At the same time, children under 18 are also more likely to be victims of crime today and in the future, especially at the hands of their peers wielding guns, says a new agency publication, “Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report.”

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said Thursday that if government doesn’t increase efforts to fight delinquent crime, citizens will pay the price.

“What you see here is a road map for the next generation of crime,” Reno said at her weekly news briefing.

“Unless we act now to stop young people from choosing a life of violent crime, the beginning of the 21st Century could bring levels of violent crime to our cities that far exceed what we have experienced.”

The attorney general said she was most shocked by the murder rate among 14- to 17-year-olds, which increased 165% in the last 10 years. She blamed much of it on the 1980s epidemic of crack cocaine in cities.

A 1993 survey cited in the report showed that 83% of the young inmates in juvenile halls said they owned a gun, and 22% of students attending inner-city high schools said they owned firearms.

Moreover, 35% of the juvenile inmates and 10% of the students questioned said it is “OK to shoot a person if that is what it takes to get something you want.”

Reno said she hoped Congress would leave intact funding for the crime initiative President Clinton signed into law a year ago, saying it would help battle the growing juvenile crime problem.

The 188-page document is the first comprehensive compilation of data on juvenile crime and victimization from more than 50 sources, the Justice Department said.

James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston, attributes the increasing lawlessness to children who aren’t supervised.

“This generation is the young and the ruthless,” he said.