Frequently Asked Questions

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Child Welfare Information Gateway website contains a listing of websites and phone numbers for specific agencies designated to receive and investigate reports of suspected child abuse and neglect in each state. To identify the appropriate agency to contact in a specific state, see the State Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Numbers page. You can also contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 800-4-A-Child (800-422-4453).

For additional information and resources, see the Child Abuse Special Feature.

The National Institute of Justice's CrimeSolutions website uses rigorous research to inform practitioners and policy makers about what works in criminal justice, juvenile justice, and crime victim services. Visit the Corrections & Reentry section of the site to view research on program effectiveness reviewed and rated by CrimeSolutions Researchers and Reviewers.

Also see the following sites for additional information and resources:

• Reentry Resource Center
• Reentry Special Feature

The Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is Liz Ryan.

Missing and exploited children statistics are available in resources from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others. Visit the Statistics section of our Missing Children Special Feature for access to these resources.

For additional information, visit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children website.

Child sexual abuse statistics are available in the Department of Health and Human Services' annual report, Child Maltreatment. For additional information and topical resources, visit the Child Abuse Special Feature section of our website.

Juvenile arrest statistics are available in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report, Crime in the United States and in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)/National Institute of Justice bulletin, Juvenile Arrests 2018.

Also see the Law Enforcement and Juvenile Crime and the Juvenile Arrest Rates sections of the OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book (SBB).

Race and ethnicity data on confined youth can be found on the Juvenile in Corrections section of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Statistical Briefing Book. Also see the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement data set.

According to Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2014 National Report, a report funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP): "There is no national recidivism rate for juveniles. Each state's juvenile justice system differs in organization, administration, and data capacity. These differences influence how states define, measure, and report recidivism rates. This also makes it challenging to compare recidivism rates across states." In addition, view the report Measuring and Using Juvenile Recidivism Data To Inform Policy, Practice, and Resource Allocation and Core Principles for Reducing Recidivism and Improving Other Outcomes for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System, which are sponsored by OJJDP and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Also see Measuring Juvenile Recidivism an online interactive resource from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Public Safety Performance Project.

You may also wish to conduct a search of the Abstracts Database, which contains a number of reports on recidivism at the state level. Also see the recidivism data collection from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Information on juvenile sex offenders is available in the following Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention resources: Juveniles Who Have Sexually Offended: A Review of the Professional Literature and Juvenile Sex Offender Research Bibliography. Also view the Juvenile Sex Offenders resources and the Juvenile Section Research Briefs from the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking.