An unprecedented and rapidly developing trend — the transfer of juvenile offenders into the adult prison system at increasingly younger ages — is creating increasing strain on our country’s criminal justice system.
A single problem is driving this policy nationwide. The problem is violent juvenile crime, especially juvenile homicide.
This study examines where juvenile homicides occur and finds that juvenile homicide is highly site-specific. Six states account for more than half of the country’s juvenile homicide arrests, and just four cities account for nearly a third of the juvenile homicide arrests. These cities, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Detroit contain 3.7 million juveniles, just 5.3% of the juveniles nationwide.