Youth Violence - Quick Statistics
Youth violence is a widespread problem in the United States. Consider the following statistics:
- About 9% of murders in the U.S. were committed by youth under 18 in 2000. An estimated 1561 youth under the age of 18 were arrested for homicide in 2000.[1]
- Youth under 18 accounted for about 15% of violent crime arrests in 2001.[2]
- One national survey found that for every teen arrested, at least 10 were engaged in violence that could have seriously injured or killed another person.[3]
- About 1 in 3 high school students say they have been in a physical fight in the past year, and about 1 in 8 of those students required medical attention for their injuries.[4]
- More than 1 in 6 students in grades 6 to 10 say they are bullied sometimes, and more than 1 in 12 say they are bullied once a week or more.[5]
- Suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers - In 2000, 1921 young people ages 10 to 19 died by suicide in the United States.[6]
- About 1 in 11 high-school students say they have made a suicide attempt in the past year.[7]
Although youth violence has always been a problem in the United States, the number of deaths and serious injuries increased dramatically during the late 1980's and early 1990's, as more and more youth began to carry weapons.
Since then, however, the tide has begun to turn. Between 1992 and 2001, juvenile arrests on weapons charges dropped 35%; the juvenile arrest rate for murder fell 62%, dropping to its lowest level in more than two decades; and the juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes dropped by 21%.[8] Clearly, considerable progress has been made, but youth violence does still remain a serious problem in the United States.
[1] Fox, J.A., Zawitz, M.W. (2002). Homicide Trends in the United States. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
[2] Federal Bureau of Investigation (2002). Crime in the United States, 2001. Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Table 41.
[3] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001). Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General. Executive Summary, p. vii. Comparison of data from the Monitoring the Future Study from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program
[4] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2002). Youth risk behavior surveillance - United States, 2001. In: CDC Surveillance Summaries, June 28, 2002. MMWR, 51(SS-4), p. 5.
[5] Nansel, T.R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R.S., Ruan, W.J., Simons-Morton, B., & Scheidt, P. (2001). Bullying Behaviors Among US Youth: Prevalence and Association With Psychosocial Adjustment. Journal of the American Medical Association, 285(16), 2094-2100.
[6] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data Source: NCHS National Vital Statistics System for numbers of deaths, U.S. Bureau of Census for population estimates. Statistics compiled using WISQARSTM produced by the Office of Statistics and Programming, NCIPC, CDC.
[7] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2002). Youth risk behavior surveillance - United States, 2001. In: CDC Surveillance Summaries, June 28, 2002. MMWR, 51(SS-4), p. 6.
[8] Federal Bureau of Investigation (2002). Crime in the United States, 2001. Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Table 32