Public Safety

Juvenile Intakes

Juvenile intakes, representing incidents in which a juvenile is alleged to have broken the law, are difficult to compare across regions because of differences in policy and types of behavior. However, despite these differences, juvenile intakes in general have declined in Virginia.

Why is This Important?

Juvenile intakes provide a measure of policy, workload and scope related to adolescent problem behaviors occurring in a community. They should not be interpreted as the amount or seriousness of juvenile crime.

Intake data include all offenses for which a child is brought to the Court Service Unit. It further includes not only the cases in which the police officer brings the child to the Court Service Unit, but also the complaints that are brought by parents, neighbors or others who do not call the police for an arrest.

How is Virginia Doing?

Juvenile Intakes Per 1,000 Juvenile Population, By Region. See text for explanation.

Virginia's juvenile intake rate has remained generally unchanged over the last several years. The lowest rate in 2005 was in the Northern Region followed by the Valley Region, with 22 and 25.3 intakes per 1,000 youth ages 10 to 21, respectively. The highest rate was in the Central Region, with 37.4 intakes per 1,000 youth.

These statistics, however, belie the true drivers of Virginia's juvenile crime problem. In the City of Richmond, for example, nearly 40 percent of the intake cases are for felony or misdemeanor crimes against persons, and other localities do not begin to approach the 8.9 percent of weapons/narcotics intake cases.

While the West Central Region led the state for the highest juvenile intakes from 2002-2004, the percentage of intakes in that region fell in 2005 to approximately 36 per 1,000, the equivalent of the Southwest, Southside and Central regions in the same year.

What Influences Juvenile Intakes?

A major influence on juvenile intakes is local justice system policy. Some police departments have very strong community policing programs. If an officer witnesses a juvenile committing a minor offense, the officer may counsel the youth involved, take the youth to their home and/or meet with the parents or guardians rather than formally arresting the youth. In other localities, the policy may be to take formal action on every alleged criminal activity. In localities where serious juvenile crime is prevalent, resources may not permit acting upon the most minor offenses.

What is the State's Role?

Juvenile intake services are provided through 32 state operated Court Service Units and three locally operated/partially state funded Court Service Units.

Data Definitions and Sources

Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, Research and Evaluation Unit, by special request from the Juvenile Tracking System on 1/13/2005 and 3/28/2006.

Data for Fairfax City are included with Fairfax County.

Population data for calculating rates are from: Puzzanchera, C., Finnegan, T. and Kang, W. (2006). "Easy Access to Juvenile Populations" Online: www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/ezapop

Juvenile population in Virginia ranges from age 10 through age 21 (with 18 - 21 year olds included if they were under juvenile justice supervision prior to their 18th birthdays. Population data were readily available for age 10 - 20. Population estimates for FY05 are not yet available. Consequently, 2004 estimates are used for calculating FY05 rates.

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Recent State Initiatives

Prevention Comes First includes a variety of efforts to promote the positive development of Virginia's youth, by addressing the risk and protective factors that lead to youth gang recruitment and activity, substance abuse, delinquency, violence, school drop-out, and related adolescent problem behaviors. www.gosap.state.va.us/ preventioncomesfirst.htm

In 2002, the Governor's Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (GOSAP) brought together the 13 state agencies that have a prevention element in their missions to form the GOSAP Collaborative to promote positive youth development. Comprised of state-level prevention leaders who have the authority to influence agency prevention funding and administrative practices, the GOSAP Collaborative is reshaping how prevention works in Virginia to improve its effectiveness and efficiency at both the state and local levels. www.gosap.governor.virginia.gov/ aboutgosapcollaborative.htm

Major State Programs

The Juvenile Accountability Block Grant program (JABG) provides direct, formula-based allocations to eligible localities to address the problem of juvenile crime by promoting greater accountability in the juvenile justice system. www.dcjs.virginia.gov/ juvenile/jabg/index.cfm

The mission of the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) is to protect the public through a balanced approach of comprehensive services that prevent and reduce delinquency through partnerships with families, schools, communities, law enforcement and other agencies, while providing the opportunity for delinquent youth to develop into responsible and productive citizens. www.djj.state.va.us/

The Juvenile Services Section of the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services is involved in planning, policy development, and funding of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention initiatives provided through federal or state resources. www.dcjs.virginia.gov/ juvenile/

The Virginia Center for School Safety provides resources, training, and data collection to the localities as well as best practices in school safety initiatives. www.dcjs.virginia.gov/vcss/

Additional Information

Juvenile intakes: Intake is the process of a juvenile being brought before a Court Service Unit (CSU) for one or more alleged violations of law. At Intake, a specially trained officer determines whether there is enough evidence that the child violated a law, the appropriateness of release and/or referral without formal action (diversion), or formal action via petition.

If formal action is taken, the officer also determines whether the juvenile should be released to a parent or another responsible adult, placed in a detention alternative, or detained in a secure detention facility pending a court hearing. In Virginia, intake officers are guided by the completion of a Detention Assessment Instrument to make detention decisions more consistent by using standard criteria.

One intake may involve a single or multiple complaints, or specific violations of law, that a juvenile is alleged to have committed.

People may be more familiar with arrest data. However, arrest data measure police activity and policy. In Virginia arrest reporting guidelines require that juvenile arrests are counted if an adult in the same situation would be arrested. This would exclude status offenses, offenses for youth that would not be crimes if they were adults (i.e., running way from home, truancy, etc.).

Since 1999 Virginia has gradually been converting to an incident-based reporting format, following the national guidelines. While most police agencies are now using the incident-based system, the data across years may not be fully comparable for several more years. Consequently, the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice now uses juvenile intake data rather than arrest data.

For more information on juvenile intake:

More information on the intake process may be found in the Code of Virginia 16.1-246 et seq.

More information on juvenile justice in Virginia may be found at: www.djj.virginia.gov