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Juvenile Justice in California, 2009

NCJ Number
231593
Date Published
July 2010
Length
126 pages
Annotation
This report presents information on the California juvenile justice process reporting the numbers of arrests, referral to probation departments, petitions filed, and dispositions for juveniles tried in juvenile and adult courts for 2009.
Abstract
Highlights of report findings include: (1) more than half the juveniles (56.6 percent) were arrested for a misdemeanor offense, another quarter (28.6 percent) were arrested for a felony offense, and the remainder (14.7 percent) were arrested for a status offense; (2) nearly 8 out of 10 juveniles arrested (79.0 percent) were referred to county juvenile probation departments; (3) nearly 9 out of 10 juveniles referred to county probation departments (85.8 percent) were referred by law enforcement agencies; (4) for approximately one-half (51.0 percent) of the referrals to the probation departments, a petition was filed in juvenile court; (5) of the juveniles handled formally by the juvenile court, the majority (57.5 percent) were mad wards of the court; (6) more than one-fifth (23.4 percent) of the petitions for formal juvenile court adjudication were dismissed; and (7) more than three-fourths (84.6 percent) of the juvenile dispositions filed in adult court resulted in a conviction in 2009. This report presents juvenile justice statistics in the areas of arrests, referrals, petitions, and adult court dispositions for California in 2009. Tables, charts, figures, appendixes 1-3 and glossary