Abstract
According to the most recent report available from the US Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), in 2008 juveniles accounted for about 16% of all arrests for violent crime and 26% of all arrests for property crime (Puzzanchera 2009). Although these rates represent an overall decline of 3% in juvenile arrests from the year prior, and a decline of 16% from 10 years prior, the absolute number of juvenile arrests is still daunting. In 2008, there were an estimated 2.11 million arrests of juveniles, and about 96,000 (5%) of those were for the index violent crimes of murder/nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault (Puzzanchera 2009).