Felony Juvenile Arrest Rate Has Fallen, Group Says

On the eve of a statewide vote to prosecute more juvenile offenders as adults, a liberal research group released a report Thursday suggesting that fears of youth violence are wildly overblown.

The study by the Justice Policy Institute says juvenile felony arrest rates dropped more than 40% throughout California from 1978 to 1998, even as adult felony arrest rates increased. Authors of the study say its findings refute the popular perception that youth are more violence-prone than ever before.

“The study we’re releasing today, in many ways, is shocking,” Michael Males, the report’s co-author, said at a news conference at the downtown Los Angeles Athletic Club. “The younger generation has become steadily more law-abiding. . . . It is simply not true that today’s youth are committing more crime, and more serious crime.”

The study’s release was timed to coincide with the debate over Proposition 21, the measure on Tuesday’s ballot that would toughen California’s juvenile justice laws. Among other things, it would tighten penalties on gang-related crimes and grant prosecutors more authority to decide which juveniles are tried as adults.

Proponents of Proposition 21 cite their own statistics, including the fact that the raw numbers for arrests for violent juvenile crime rose nearly 61% from 1983 to 1998.

But authors of the Justice Policy Institute study said Thursday that violent arrests rose sharply among all age groups during that period. The increase among juveniles was less dramatic than among adults, they added. The study says juvenile offenders--defined as ages 10 to 17--accounted for less than 15% of California’s felony arrests in 1998, compared with 30% in 1978.