Interest in juvenile offenders has increased in the past few decades due to the large number of youths coming into contact with the law and the rising violent crime. Research by Howard Snyder and Melissa Sickmund provides extensive juvenile population and crime statistic data, and some of their pertinent information is summarized here to provide a rough picture of the characteristics of juvenile offenders in the United States. From 1989 to the mid-1990s, juvenile violent crime was on the rise, and it peaked in 1994. From 1994 to 2003, the juvenile crime rate decreased, with a particularly steep decline of 48% in the juvenile violent crime arrest rate. Juvenile offending remains a significant social problem, and subgroups [Page 432]of juveniles engage in different levels of ...