JUVENILE CRIME: OVERVIEW OF CHANGING PATTERN Dr Satyanshu Mukherjee Australian Institute of Criminology Paper presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology Conference Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice, Towards 2000 and Beyond, Adelaide, 26-27 June 1997
Each year in Australia one out of every 20 juveniles is arrested for a property or violent crime. If we follow a cohort of juveniles from age 10 we would expect at least 30 per cent of them to have a minimum of one arrest record by the time they cease to be a juvenile; a large majority of these will not have another arrest record. For those that have an arrest record each successive arrest record puts them in higher risk until they become chronic or persistent offenders. Research shows that by the time a juvenile has five arrest records the risk of his/her arrest for a subsequent offence increases to over 90 per cent. 1 This is not a particularly encouraging situation. The encouraging part is that only a fraction of youth population, 6 to 7 per cent, is expected to join the chronic or persistent offender group that is usually responsible for a substantial part of all crimes. In most of the industrialised world, irrespective of whether such research has been conducted or not, it is agreed that a small number of offenders commit a disproportionately large number of crimes. No such research has been conducted in Australia but the results of a few recent studies on recidivism point in the same direction. In a study of 52,935 juvenile offenders who appeared before NSW Children s Court between January 1986 and December 1994 Cain found that 9 per cent of these offenders were responsible for 31 per cent of all proven appearances. 2 Research in criminal careers clearly shows that many adult offenders have had records of juvenile delinquency. 3 This finding also suggest that the juvenile justice system does not work for many youngsters. Studies in population structures tell us that in the industrialised world the proportion of young people in the population has been declining and currently is at its lowest. If a minority of young people commit a large number of crimes and if there are proportionately fewer young people in the population now than before, why are crime rates high and rising? Juvenile involvement in Crime Is involvement of juveniles in criminal activities increasing? Are crimes by juveniles becoming more serious? What is their involvement in violent crimes? If we go by the popular media, including commercial TV in Australia there is a strong suggestion that not only juvenile crime is increasing but more and more of them are engaging in capricious violence. Stories on teenage killers preying on the elderly, teenage gangs, teenage armed robbers figure in the media every now and then. Such coverage, even in the absence of valid evidence, has prompted governments in Australia to legislate tougher penalties, including three strikes laws. Zero-tolerance policing has already reached Australia. All Australian jurisdictions currently require that juveniles charged with serious offences such as murder, rape, armed robbery, be tried in higher courts. Some jurisdictions also provide for a juvenile of certain age charged with an indictable offence to be transferred from the children s court to a higher court. But the current push for tougher sentencing 1 Wolfgang, M., R. M. Figlio, and T.Sellin. 1972. Delinquency in a Birth Cohort. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2 Cain, M. 1996 Recidivism of Juvenile Offenders in New South Wales, 1996. Sydney: NSW Department of Juvenile Justice. 3 See Blumstein, A., J. Cohen, J. Roth, and C. Visher, eds. 1986. Criminal Careers and Career Criminals. Washington, D.C. National Academy Press; Wolfgang, M.E., T.P. Thornberry, and R.M. Figlio, 1987. From Boy to Man, from Delinquency to Crime. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2
legislation marks a fundamental shift in the philosophy of individualised disposition. It appears that our juvenile justice systems will mirror the systems in many states of the United States that followed a spate of legislative changes resulting in courts punishing the offence rather than the offender. A recent study of State Juvenile Justice Laws in the United States observed, In many states, legislative activities followed a period of intense political rhetoric that compelled action to curb juvenile violence. In many instances, individual vignettes portraying a single incident served as focus for legislative motivation. 4 While the media continue to inform us of increasing juvenile crime and law makers enact new laws, our knowledge of juvenile crime remains rudimentary. There are three sets of data that offer information on crime committed by different age-gender groups: surveys of self reported crimes, crime victim surveys, and arrest or people processed data. On the first, there are not that many surveys of self reported crime in Australia. But if the results of the surveys conducted overseas are any guide, we are told that up to as high as 90 per cent of the boys and 60-70 per cent of the girls reported they had engaged in at least one unlawful act before they were 18. 5 An international study of self-reported delinquency, including 13 Western countries, found that the prevalence rate of delinquency was as high as 90 per cent. 6 Surveys have also found substantial amount of violent acts through selfreport studies. The National Youth Survey in the United States observed that 30 per cent of males who turned 18 in the 1970s and 1980s reported having committed at least three violent offences within a 1-year period before their 18th birthday, the proportion for females was 10 per cent. 7 Such surveys have also found that over 80 per cent of selfreported serious offenders had no official record. Surveys of self-reported delinquency could be a valuable supplement to the police statistics provided these are refined methodologically and conducted in a systematic fashion specially with regard to sampling of locations and age groups. The second source, crime victim surveys or crime and safety surveys, could not be very useful in determining age of the perpetrator for several reasons. The offender details based on these surveys depends on the perception of the victim; for 9 out of 10 crimes that are property crimes, the Crime and Safety surveys cannot say anything about the offender because he/she is seldom observed by the victim. Arrest proportion Currently, arrest statistics or offenders processed data appear to be the best set of data on which juvenile crime trend can be described. Such statistics for Australia are not yet available. I do not wish to elaborate on this, firstly a lot has been said about Australian Crime Statistics, and secondly it is in my view an exercise in futility. However, most States/Territories publish some data on offenders but because of differences in definition 4 Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, Department of Justice, 1996. State Responses to Serious and Violent Juvenile Crime, quoted in Criminal Justice Newsletter, Vol. 17, Number 23, December 1996, p. 1. 5 See Short, J.F. and F.I.Nye, 1957. Reported Behavior as a Criterion of Deviant Behavior, Social Problems, 5:207-213; Shannon, L. 1988. Criminal Career Continuity: Its social context. New York: Human Sciences Press, Inc.; Shannon, L. 1991. Changing Patterns of Delinquency and Crime: A Longitudinal Study in Racine. Boulder: Westview Press. 6 Junger-Tas, Terlouw, G. and Klein, M.W. 1994. Delinquent Behaviour Among Young People in the Western World: First Results of the International Self-report Delinquency Study. Amsterdam: Kugler Publications. 7 Elliott, D.S., Huizinga, D., and Morse, B. 1986. Self-reported violent offending: A descriptive analysis of juvenile violent offenders and their offending careers. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 1:472-514. 3
of a juvenile (in terms of both minimum and maximum age) these cannot be combined to produce a national picture. New South Wales currently does not produce any arrest statistics. Victoria and Queensland consider a child between the ages of 10 and 16 as a juvenile and I shall use data from these two States to examine juvenile crime trend. I shall treat the data separately for the two States because Victoria uses Alleged Offenders Processed and Queensland uses Offenders Associated with Cleared Offences, and also because of differences in the juvenile justice systems. Consider the data in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1: Juveniles as percentage of 10+ population and violent and property crime arrests, Victoria 1986-87 to 1995-96. 1986-87 1991-92 1995-96 State population 10+ 13.2 11.4 11.1 Violent crimes 11.5 13.7 12.0 Property Crimes 32.8 23.2 26.3 All crimes 30.1 22.0 23.8 Table 2: Juveniles as percentage of 10+ population and violent and property crime arrests, Queensland 1986-87 to 1995-96. 1986-87 1991-92 1995-96 State population 10+ 14.2 12.5 12.1 Violent crimes 14.0 17.2 16.5 Property crimes 45.4 35.1 26.9 All crimes 41.0 32.6 25.4 Violent crimes include homicide, serious assault, common assault, and robbery; property crimes include break enter and steal, motor vehicle theft, stealing, arson, property damage, and fraud. The data in the above two Tables show that the population of juveniles as a proportion of the State population 10 years old and over has declined in both the States over the last ten years; the decline has been 16 per cent in Victoria and 15 per cent in Queensland. In 1986-87 juveniles in Victoria accounted for 13.2 per cent of the State s population but accounted for 11.5 per cent of violent crime arrests and 32.8 per cent of property crime arrests. By 1995-96 the population of juveniles declined to 11.1 per cent and accounted for 12 and 26.3 per cent violent and property crime arrests respectively. A similar pattern is obtained for Queensland. The data clearly show that juvenile involvement in property crime arrests is very high but declining. And when we consider the fact that juveniles tend to commit crimes in groups they probably will account for an even lower percentage of crimes. 4
Arrest rate The proportionate decline in juvenile population and declining arrest proportions tend to mask the reality, which is escalating arrest rates of juveniles. Indeed, as the data in Tables 3 and 4 show, juvenile arrest rates for violent crimes have increased by more that 250 per cent and 115 per cent in Victoria and Queensland respectively over recent years. Table 3: Alleged juvenile offenders processed for violent and property crimes per 100,000 relevant population, Victoria 1986-87 to 1995-96. Crimes 1986-87 1991-92 1995-96 Violent 126.5 343.4 447.9 Property 2450.1 3927.0 4587.8 Table 4: Offenders associated with cleared offences for violent and property offences per 100,000 relevant population, Queensland 1986-87 to 1995-96. Crimes 1986-87 1991-92 1995-96 Violent 184.3 332.6 395.6 Property 3706.8 4279.7 3853.8 On an average, the adult arrest rate for violent crimes increased by 20 per cent per year in Victoria, and the juvenile arrest rate increased by 28 per cent per year. In Queensland the figures were 6 per cent and 13 per cent for adults and juveniles respectively. Arrest rates for property crimes also increased but the increase was faster for adults than for juveniles in both the States. This seemingly contradictory result requires some explanation. Rising arrest rate First of all it is important to point out that the data presented in this paper do not relate to individual offenders, in both Victoria and Queensland these refer to the number of alleged offenders processed. In other words, these do not relate to distinct individuals and one individual could have been processed a number of times in a year. At the beginning of this paper I cited research showing a small proportion of juveniles committing a high proportion of crimes. The data from Victoria and Queensland perhaps indicate this trend, that is fewer juveniles are committing crimes frequently. A second explanation could be that whereas the juvenile crime rate is based on juvenile population, the crime rate of those 17 years of age and over is based on total population 17 years and over. Again, research suggests that criminal behaviour declines with age and by the time one is 35 his/her probability of engaging in a criminal act is very low. In other words, we use a much larger denominator in calculating the adult crime rate. Data from the homicide monitoring program of the Australian Institute of Criminology offer some 5
interesting insights. In the seven-year period, 1989-90 to 1995-96, there were a total of 2652 suspects of homicide. The following is the age breakdown of suspects: Table 5: Age of homicide suspects Australia 1989-90 to 1995-96, and rate per 100,000 relevant population. Age Number Rate Age Number Rate 10-14 30 0.3 27-29 256 4.5 15-17 162 3.0 30-32 224 3.7 18-20 308 5.4 33-35 163 2.7 21-23 307 5.0 36+ 650 1.2 24-26 303 5.2 Unknown 249 The data in the Table is quite clear, the annual homicide suspect rate is much higher for young adults than that for juveniles. A third explanation is that even though the juvenile violent arrest rate has increased substantially still more than 9 out of 10 juvenile arrests are for property offences. Table 6: Arrest for violent offences as proportion of all arrest for juveniles and adults, Victoria 1986-87 to 1995-96 1986-87 1991-92 1995-96 Juvenile 4.9% 8.0% 8.9% Adult 16.3% 14.3% 20.3% Table 7: Arrest for violent offences as proportion of all arrest for juveniles and adults, Queensland 1986-87 to 1995-96 1986-87 1991-92 1995-96 Juvenile 4.7% 7.2% 9.3% Adult 13.9% 13.7% 14.3% Another explanation is that juveniles appear to receive a disproportionately greater share of attention from the criminal justice system than do adults, and they are reported/detected for petty unlawful behaviour. While this can be examined if the data are made available, there is one set of data that lends strong support to this assertion: data on sentenced juveniles in juvenile corrective institutions and sentenced prisoners in prisons. 6
Table 8: Rates of sentenced juveniles and adults per 100,000 relevant population in Juvenile Corrective Institutions/prisons, June 1996 Jurisdictions Juvenile Adult New South Wales 33.2 114.7 Victoria 10.4 59.3 Queensland 22.1 124.2 Western Australia 27.7 152.9 South Australia 39.1 106.0 Tasmania 15.9 66.8 Northern Territory 36.7 324.5 Australian Capital Territory 8.5 39.1 Australia 24.6 104.8 The 1990s have been very significant as far as juvenile justice is concerned. Almost all Australian jurisdictions introduced some of the most draconian measures to deal with juvenile offenders. Some of the measures appear totally an imitation of systems in some of the American States. Let us for a moment concede that juveniles are committing crimes with greater frequency, intensity, and severity as the media inform us and as the governments of Australia appear to agree. In other words they are engaged in killing, maiming, armed hold-ups, rapes, home invasion, repeat burglaries and the like. Given tougher sentencing laws and stated intentions of the governments to get tough on juveniles, where will juveniles convicted of these offences go? In any juvenile justice system these kids will end up in institutions. The data in the Table speaks eloquently about the situation. The data in Table 8 are not isolated incidents; indeed there has been a slight decline in the juvenile incarceration rate in recent quarters. The data do not suggest that the system is soft on juveniles, and it is hoped that this type of information would not be used as a trigger by overenthusiastic law enforcement to go after children. Data on juvenile crime are inadequate and measures taken in recent years to combat crimes by juveniles do not appear to be based on valid knowledge. Add to that the practice by governments initiating and discarding specific measures without assessment and we have a recipe for hit and miss or knee-jerk response to crime control. Such a situation enables authorities to respond to increasing crime in a way that does not reduce the problem but appears to satisfy the community s concerns, at least temporarily. Let me summarise the evidence so far: an overwhelming majority of children, over 90 per cent in many countries, commit at least one unlawful act before they reach adulthood; a vast majority of those reported having committed unlawful acts never have an official delinquency/crime record; a small proportion of juveniles, six to seven per cent, are responsible for a disproportionately large share of all crimes; 7
once a child has an official record of delinquency the probability of his/her obtaining another record increases; police produced statistics contradict survey results. Crime and Safety surveys in Australia do not show increases in violent crimes like assault, police statistics show sharp increases in reported incidents of assaults; Crime and Safety Surveys show no significant changes in the reportability rate of crimes over time; Crime and Safety Surveys show crime victimisation rates vary according to household and victim characteristics; e.g. the older age group is least likely to be a victim of crime, single parent households are more likely than other types of households to be victims of crime. Responding to juvenile crime It appears that there exists a huge gap between the quality of data that are available and the quality of data that are used to introduce or amend legislation and initiate measures. Programs and measures directed at preventing crime and violence target youth groups where violence is prevalent. The immediate effects of such measures in reducing crime or violence could be positive but their long-term value is uncertain. We have in Australia an abundance of expertise and it would be to governments advantage to use this expertise in designing measures to deal with youth crime. Australian society, like many western industrialised societies, is undergoing constant and unpredictable changes. Last week s release of Australian Social Trends 1997 8 is very revealing. Between 1986 and 1996 the number of single parent families in Australia increased by about 50 per cent, from 311,800 to 467,200, almost 10 per cent of all families. A large majority of these are female-parent families with dependants. And, more than half of the single parents are unemployed. Research literature, 20 to 30 years back, might have referred to these families as broken homes, dysfunctional families, or even deviant families. Today, this 10 per cent is recognised as part of Australian society. Let me add to these a few more items of data. 26.6 per cent of all births in Australia in 1996 were outside marriage. Our secondary school retention rate beyond year 10 has not increased substantially, indeed there is a slight decline in retention rate in year 12. Only a quarter of the population eligible to enrol in tertiary institutions do so. It is not known what impact the proposed Federal government changes to unemployment benefit, Austudy, and HECS will have on participation in education - these changes will affect the youth most. The aging Australian population suffers more from fear of crime than from crime. Their frail health may make them less tolerant to youthful boisterous behaviour. They may find such behaviour disrespectful and at times dangerous. The solution is not zero-tolerance policing. If the zero-tolerance policing in New South Wales operates the way it is reported in the press it may create serious problems for the future. I wish to remind you of 8 ABS 1997. Australian Social Trends. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Catalogue No. 4102.0. 8
the three strikes legislation. A recent evaluation of this legislation concludes that violent crime in non-three-strikes states fell nearly three times more rapidly than in three-strikes states. 9 The city of Los Angeles has used three-strikes law since 1994. Murder and forcible rape actually increased in Los Angeles, and in New York (a nonthree-strikes city) murder rate declined by 25 per cent over the same period. Current criminological research literature in Australia and overseas is unequivocal in one sense - if the intention of a legislation is to prevent crime and violence, not shift crime from one neighbourhood to another or from now to six months later, then our efforts must begin at the early stages of life, i.e. pre-school years. Some of the societal changes cited above can have far reaching consequences on the lives of children. This type of approach to crime prevention has the advantage of working with the family, local community groups, child care agencies and school. It is hoped the recent launch of the $13 million National Campaign Against Crime and Violence by the Prime Minister will help conduct some longitudinal research in Australia on causes of crime and crime prevention. We can learn a tremendous amount from research conducted overseas, but every society has some unique characteristics that research in Australia can examine. The knowledge gained can assist in designing Australian solutions to Australia s youth crime problem. 9 Schraldi, V. and Ambrosio, T. March 1997. Striking Out: The Crime Control Impact of Three Strikes Laws. Policy Institute, Washington, D.C. The Justice 9