Juvenile Court Case Statistics from 1926 to Present

Juvenile Court Statistics Series is the oldest continuous source of information on the processing of delinquent and dependent youth by juvenile courts, inaugurated in 1926. It provides annual data on the volume of delinquency, status offense, and dependency cases disposed by courts with juvenile jurisdiction, distinguishing cases with and without a petition filing. The data includes counts at the state and county levels.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in delinquency case volumes versus status offense cases over time at the state level.
• Compare the ratio of cases with a petition filing to those without across different counties.
• Model the relationship between total number of cases and dependency cases to understand caseload composition.
• Examine geographic patterns in status offense cases using state and county identifiers.

Strengths

• Data series is the oldest continuous source on juvenile court processing, beginning in 1926.
• Provides detailed annual counts for delinquency, status offense, and dependency cases.
• Data is distinguished by the filing of a petition, a key procedural variable.
• Includes geographic granularity with state and county-level information.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, column details, and sample data are unavailable for assessing dataset scale and structure.
• The description does not specify the exact temporal coverage or update frequency beyond 'annually'.
• Lack of column-level metadata limits understanding of available features for analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Juvenile Justice, Department of Justice.

Collection Method

Quantitative data collections describing the volume of juvenile cases disposed by courts having jurisdiction.

Time Range

Annual series inaugurated in 1926; specific end year not provided.

Freshness

Annually; last updated 2025-11-14.

Geography

United States, with state and county-level information.