General California Juvenile Crime Trends and CYA Commitments

General California Juvenile Crime Trends and CYA Commitments
(Figures 1 & 2)

• Viewed in a long-term perspective (back to 1961), overall juvenile crime rates in California peaked in 1973, driven primarily by status offense arrests. By 1983, arrest rates dropped to half the 1973 level and remained fairly stable throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Since 1996, overall arrest rates have declined dramatically (Figure 1).
  
  
• The de-institutionalization movement in the mid-1970s reversed a trend for rapidly increasing status offense rates. During the 1960s, status offenses accounted for most juvenile arrests in California. By 1979, only 11% of juvenile arrests were for status offenses. Misdemeanor arrest rates, which were stable throughout the 1960s, more than doubled between 1972 and 1974 to compensate for reduced status offense arrests.
  
  
• Rates for misdemeanor arrests and status offense arrests stabilized in the early 1980s and have remained relatively unchanged since then.
  
  
• Felony arrest rates peaked in the mid-1970s, dropped briefly during the mid-1980s, rose again slightly during the late 1980s and then gradually fell throughout the 1990s. By the year 2000, California's juvenile felony offense rate reached its lowest level since the mid-1960s: half the level of the peak period of the mid-1970s.
  
  
• When overlaid on these arrest rates, CYA commitments have shown no particular trend toward following juvenile arrest rates in California (Figure 2). Major changes in commitment patterns tended to be the result of changes in the law:
  • Probation Subsidy (aid to counties for alternatives to CYA commitment) in the mid-1960s
  • De-institutionalization of status offenders in the early 1970s,
  • Laws to restrict the commitment of adult offenders to the CYA in the early 1980s,
  • Laws permitting housing of adult offenders (M-cases) in CYA institutions in the mid-1980s, and
  • Laws to discourage the commitment of less-serious offenders (sliding-scale fees) in the late 1990s

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