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Arrest of Juveniles for Drug Abuse Violations from 1994 to 2003

Introduction

One major social ill facing the United States is drug abuse and its impact on the person and on society as a whole. Arrest data from the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program show that within the past decade alone, the number of arrests for drug abuse violations has increased 24.2 percent. In fact, the estimated number of arrests for drug abuse violations for the 10-year period 1994 to 2003 topped 15.4 million. Trends for overall arrests involving drug abuse suggest that this social problem shows no signs of abating. (See Table 5.1.)

Objective

Analyzing the characteristics of those arrested has long been a valuable tool for law enforcement in the war against crime. The objective of this study is to analyze the data provided to the UCR Program by the local, county, and state law enforcement agencies pertaining to the juveniles (individuals under age 18) whom they arrested for drug abuse violations during the decade of 1994 to 2003.

Methodology

This study uses simple statistics and graphical tools to analyze the data received by the UCR Program concerning juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations over the 10-year period under consideration. The age, sex, and race of the juvenile arrestees are featured, and trends and patterns are illustrated by the tables and graphs.

Data

In the UCR Program, one arrest is counted for each separate instance in which an individual is arrested, cited, or summoned for a criminal act. An individual may be arrested multiple times during a year; therefore, the UCR Program’s arrest figures do not represent the total number of persons arrested, but rather an accounting of the number of instances of arrest by law enforcement agencies. Because participation in the Program is voluntary, many agencies submit fewer than 12 months of arrest data. The actual arrest counts from those agencies submitting 12 months of complete arrest data were the base for this study. Those actual arrest counts were then used to estimate the number of arrests for the agencies that submitted fewer than 12 months of arrest data. (Details about the process used for making these estimations are provided in the Appendix at the end of this study.)

Table 5.2: Estimated Number of Drug Arrests by Sale/Manufacturing and Possession

The UCR Program defines a juvenile as a person under the age of 18. The data used in this study include the age, sex, and race information reported to the Program concerning juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations over the 10-year period 1994 to 2003. The reader should know that the details collected by the UCR Program concerning the arrests made by law enforcement for drug abuse violations include the type of drug involved, differentiating between sale/manufacturing and possession of the following four drug categories: opium or cocaine and their derivatives (e.g. morphine, heroin, codeine); marijuana; synthetic narcotics—manufactured narcotics which can cause true drug addiction (e.g. Demerol, methadone); and dangerous nonnarcotic drugs (e.g. barbiturates, Benzedrine). This study uses these categories and definitions as well.

Finally, for this paper, the term drug abuse encompasses sale/manufacturing and possession, unless otherwise stated. In addition, the number of arrests implies estimated values. For convenience and ease of reading, opium or cocaine will be used for the category opium or cocaine and their derivatives.

Analysis

Of the total number (15,416,973) of arrests for drug abuse violations during the decade (1994–2003) examined for this study, 12.4 percent were of juveniles (persons under age 18). (See Table 5.1.) The following text provides an analysis of the data furnished to the UCR Program concerning those arrests.

By Age

Law enforcement agencies made over 1.9 million arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations from 1994 to 2003. The data further revealed that in 1994, persons under 18 accounted for 11.8 percent of the number of arrests for drug abuse. Ten years later, the juvenile proportion of arrests for drug abuse violations was virtually unchanged: 11.6 percent. (Based on Table 5.1.) In addition, the data provided by the arresting agencies showed that in 1997, the Nation experienced the highest number of arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations for the 10-year period under consideration. During that year, nearly 209,000 arrests of juveniles were made for either the sale/manufacture or possession of illegal drugs. (See Tables 5.1 and 5.2.)

A breakdown of the data showed that the majority (ranging from 73.8 percent in 1994 to 83.7 percent in 2003) of the arrests of juveniles for the period studied were for possession of drugs rather than the sale or manufacturing of illegal substances. (Based on Table 5.2.) Over the 10-year span, the number of arrests of juveniles for violations involving opium or cocaine declined, while arrests involving marijuana increased. Marijuana remained the drug type associated with the highest percentage of juveniles arrested for drug abuse. Arrests of juveniles for violations involving synthetic narcotics and dangerous nonnarcotics consistently accounted for the lowest percentage of juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations for the 10-year period. (See Figure 5.1.)

A review of the arrest data from 1994 to 2003 showed that the overall number of arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations increased 22.9 percent. The number of arrests involving each drug type, with the exception of opium or cocaine, increased during the decade. Arrests for violations involving marijuana rose 60.5 percent, arrests involving synthetic narcotics increased 162.8 percent—the highest proportional increase, and arrests involving dangerous nonnarcotics rose 38.4 percent. Arrests of juveniles for violations involving opium or cocaine, however, declined 50.9 percent when comparing the number of arrests for drug abuse for 2003 with the number for 1994. (Based on Tables 5.1 and 5.2.)

A comparison of data concerning arrests for drug abuse from 1999 and 2003, a five-year trend, indicated the number of arrests of juveniles for violations involving marijuana increased 4.2 percent, arrests of juveniles involved with synthetic narcotics increased 80.6 percent, and arrests of juveniles involved with dangerous nonnarcotics increased 55.2 percent. Arrests of juveniles for violations involving opium or cocaine decreased 27.7 percent during this period. (Based on Table 5.2.)

During the two-year period from 2002 to 2003, the number of arrests of juveniles for violations involving marijuana, synthetic narcotics, and dangerous nonnarcotics increased 7.9 percent, 8.8 percent, and 8.2 percent, respectively. However, the number of arrests of juveniles involved with opium or cocaine declined 5.7 percent. (Based on Table 5.2.)

A review of the arrest data for 2003 revealed that the overall number of arrests of juveniles for the sale/manufacturing or possession of marijuana accounted for over 7 out of every 10 arrests of juveniles for drug abuse. Arrests for the sale/manufacturing or possession of marijuana accounted for 73.0 percent of the arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations, followed by opium or cocaine with 13.2 percent of the arrests, dangerous nonnarcotics with 10.9 percent, and synthetic narcotics with 2.9 percent. (Based on Table 5.2.)

By Age and Sex

A review of the data for the number of arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations for each sex and age group showed that, as expected, juveniles 12 years of age and younger comprised the lowest percentage of arrests of juveniles for each year of the 10-year period covered. An examination of the data by sex showed that a lower percentage of female juveniles were arrested than were male juveniles for each age group. The group showing the highest percentage of arrests for each year during the 10-year period was 17-year-old males. (See Table 5.3.)

The data for the 10 years covered in this study showed that of the number of arrests in 1994 for drug abuse violations involving juveniles under age 10, 83.0 percent were males and 17.0 percent were females. A decade later, the percentage of arrests for drug abuse violations of males under age 10 dropped to 78.9 percent, and the percentage of arrests of females increased to 21.1 percent. (See Table 5.4.)

An examination of the data for all juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations within sex and by each age group showed that a higher proportion of female juveniles were arrested at a younger age (15 and under) than were male juveniles. This held true for each year of the 10-year period considered in this study. (See Table 5.5.) The number of arrests of male juveniles for drug abuse violations accounted for over 80.0 percent of the total number of arrests of juveniles for drug abuse; however, the number decreased slightly over the 10-year period. In contrast, arrests of female juveniles marginally increased over the 10-year period, but remained under 20.0 percent of the total. (See Table 5.6.)

Arrests of male juveniles invariably account for the largest proportion of the arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations— 82.8 percent to 88.2 percent of the total arrests during the 10-year span of this study. When the sex of the arrestees within drug type was compared, the data showed that male juveniles composed a greater percentage of the total arrests for violations involving opium or cocaine, followed by violations involving marijuana. This held true for all 10 years studied. A year-by-year review of the arrest data involving synthetic narcotics and dangerous nonnarcotics by sex of the arrestees within drug type showed that from 1994 to 1998, violations involving these two drug types were consistently the third and fourth most frequent cause of arrest (and they often exchanged positions). From 1999 to 2003, the percentage of male juveniles arrested for violations involving synthetic narcotics proportionally followed dangerous nonnarcotics in percentage of arrests. (See Table 5.6.)

For the 10-, five-, and two-year periods examined for this study, the data reflected that the percent of change in the number of arrests of female juveniles for all drug types combined was larger than that for male juveniles, although male juveniles were more frequently arrested than female juveniles for violations involving each of the four drug types. (See Tables 5.6 and 5.7.) With the exception of violations involving opium or cocaine, the percent of change for arrests involving each of the four drug types by sex showed that the percentage increase for the arrests of female juveniles was much higher than the percentage increase in the number of arrests for male juveniles. There was a decrease in the number of arrests of both female and male juveniles for the 10- and five-year periods for violations involving opium or cocaine. The number of arrests of male juveniles for drug abuse violations involving each drug type (except opium or cocaine) increased in 2003 when compared to the number in 2002. The number of arrests of male juveniles for violations involving opium or cocaine decreased 7.0 percent when comparing the data from this two-year period. Arrests of female juveniles for drug abuse violations increased for each drug type. Interestingly, arrests of female juveniles for drug abuse violations involving opium or cocaine increased 1.5 percent in contrast to the male juvenile experience, which showed a decrease for the same period. (See Table 5.7.)

Marijuana was the drug for which more male juveniles were arrested than for any other drug type each year from 1994 to 2003. Male juveniles arrested for the sale/manufacturing and possession of marijuana combined increased from 55.1 percent of the arrests of male juveniles in 1994 to 74.0 percent in 2003. Arrests of male juveniles for violations in volving opium or cocaine fell from 34.2 percent of the arrests of male juveniles for drugs in 1994 to 13.4 percent in 2003. The percentage of arrests of male juveniles for violations involving dangerous nonnarcotic drugs was nearly equal to the percentage of arrests of male juveniles for violations involving opium or cocaine in 2003. (See Figure 5.2.)

Similarly, arrests for violations involving marijuana accounted for the highest percentage of arrests of female juveniles for drug abuse violations for each year of the 10 years under consideration. The percentage of arrests of female juveniles for violations involving opium or cocaine decreased from 1994 to 2003. The percentage of arrests of female juveniles for violations involving dangerous nonnarcotics was higher than that of opium or cocaine for 2002 and 2003. (See Figure 5.3.)

By Age and Race

T he four race categories for which data are collected by the UCR Program are white, black, American Indian or Alaskan Native, and Asian or Pacific Islander. A review of the percent distribution of arrests within drug type by the arrestee’s race showed that for all drug types combined, white juvenile ar restees accounted for 60.6 percent of the total in 1994; the number rose 23.6 percent to 74.9 percent of the total in 2003. Conversely, the percent of arrestees who were black juveniles fell 39.4 percent for all drug types combined, from 38.1 percent in 1994 to 23.1 percent in 2003. (Based on Table 5.8.) The percent of other races (American Indian or Alaskan Native and Asian or Pacific Islander) combined accounted for a minimal portion of juvenile arrestees when compared to the percentage of white and black juveniles arrested. In 1994, other races accounted for 1.3 percent, and in 2003, that percentage rose to 1.9 percent for all drug types combined. (Based on Table 5.8.)

An examination of the percent of arrests by race within drug type showed that black juveniles were more likely to be ar rested for violations involving opium or cocaine than any other racial group. Whites were more likely to be arrested for violations involving the other three drug categories. The proportion of white juveniles arrested rose 25.2 percent from 66.6 percent of the arrests for violations involving dangerous nonnarcotics in 1994 to 83.4 percent in 2003. (Based on Table 5.8.)

An analysis of the data for 1994 and 2003 showed that the number of arrests of black juveniles for drug abuse violations decreased 25.6 percent for all drug types combined. The number of arrests of black juveniles fell 59.2 percent for violations involving opium or cocaine. Similarly, the number of arrests of white and Asian or Pacific Islander juveniles declined for violations involving opium or cocaine. The number of arrests of juveniles for violations involving marijuana and synthetic nonnarcotics increased for all races. Arrests involving dangerous nonnarcotics increased for each racial category except black. (See Table 5.9.)

When arrests for drug abuse violations for 2003 were compared to those in 1999, the number of arrests of black juveniles for drug abuse violations showed a decrease for all drug categories combined (16.7 percent); arrests of black juveniles also decreased for violations involving opium or cocaine (32.9 percent), and marijuana (9.5 percent). The number of arrests of juveniles declined for each of the other three racial groups for violations involving opium or cocaine. The number of arrests of juveniles of each race, with the exception of arrests of black juveniles for violations involving marijuana, increased for violations involving marijuana, synthetic narcotics, and dangerous nonnarcotics. (See Table 5.9.)

A review of the data for the two-year period of 2002 to 2003 revealed that the number of arrests of juveniles for violations involving all drugs combined decreased 9.7 percent for juveniles who were Asian or Pacific Islander. Each race showed a decrease in the number of arrests of juveniles for violations involving opium or cocaine. Although the number of drug-related arrests of juveniles who were Asian or Pacific Islanders declined 9.9 percent for marijuana and 26.3 percent for synthetic narcotics for 2003 over 2002, the number of arrests of juveniles of all other racial categories increased for those drug types for the same two-year period. The number of arrests of juveniles of each race rose for violations involving dangerous nonnarcotics. (See Table 5.9.)

Table 5.9: Percent Change in the Estimated Number of Drug Arrests of Juveniles by Drug Type and Arrestee's Race 2-,5-,and 10-Year Comparisons

From 1994 to 2003, the 10 years of the study, the percentage of arrests of white juveniles for violations involving marijuana was, in every year, higher than for any other drug type. From 1994 to 1999, opium or cocaine violations were the second most common type leading to the arrest of white juveniles. However, beginning in 2000 and continuing until 2003, the final year of the study, the percentage of arrests of white juveniles for violations involving dangerous nonnarcotics became the second most common drug type leading to arrest. (See Figure 5.4.)

As previously observed, an examination of the data within drug type by arrestee’s race for 1994 to 2003 showed that black juveniles were proportionally more likely to be arrested for violations involving opium or cocaine for each of the 10 years when compared to the other races. (See Table 5.8.) In contrast, when the data by drug type for arrests of black juveniles for each year during the period under consideration were analyzed, the percentage of arrests for violations involving opium or co caine fell below the percentage of arrests for marijuana in 1997 and remained below through 2003. (See Figure 5.5.)

For each of the 10 years examined for this study, the highest percentage of arrests of juveniles of the race categories of American Indian or Alaskan Natives and Asian or Pacific Islanders for drug abuse was for violations involving marijuana. The percentages of arrests of juveniles in those two race categories for violations involving opium or cocaine and dangerous nonnarcotics varied higher and lower than one another several times during the 10-year period. Violations involving synthetic narcotics accounted for the lowest percentage of juvenile arrests for those two races. (See Figures 5.6 and 5.7.)

Limitations

One limitation to this study is the fact that participating in the FBI’s UCR Program is voluntary, and therefore, many agencies provide fewer than 12 months of arrest data to the Program. As a result, the actual arrest counts received by the Program must be estimated to account for those agencies that submit fewer than 12 months of arrest data for any given year. Another limitation to the data used in this study is the inclusion of the race of the arrestee and the drug breakdowns are not mandatory elements on participating agencies’ arrest reports; therefore, the number of arrests that include race and drug breakdowns is generally lower than the arrest counts by age and sex. The agencies that contribute data to the FBI using the traditional Summary system are limited to collecting four drug categories with little specificity of drug type. (Currently, the UCR Program converts the data that are submitted through the Program’s National Incident-Based Reporting System to Summary data before publication.) In spite of these limitations, this study illustrates the attributes of juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations as reported to the UCR Program from 1994 to 2003.

Summary and Conclusion

Using basic statistics in tabular format and charts, this study presented the information received by the UCR Program over the 10-year period from 1994 to 2003 concerning the characteristics (i.e., the age, sex, and race) of juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations. In the past 10 years, the majority (68.7 percent) of the estimated number of arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations (sale/manufacturing and possession combined) were for marijuana. A comparison of the number o f arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations in 2003 to that in 1994 showed that arrests of juveniles for violations involving marijuana increased 60.5 percent. The number of arrests of juveniles for violations involving all drugs combined increased 22.9 percent from 1994 to 2003, with only arrests for violations involving opium or cocaine showing a decrease (50.9 percent) during the same period. In 1994, whites accounted for 60.6 percent of the juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations, increasing to 74.9 percent in 2003. In terms of sex, male juveniles were more often arrested for drug abuse violations than were female juveniles; however, female juveniles were shown to be arrested at a younger age than were male juveniles. By race within drug type, black juveniles comprised the majority of arrests for violations involving opium and cocaine. White juveniles accounted for the majority of arrests for violations involving the other three drug categories.

This study served to display the attributes of the juvenile arrestees for drug abuse violations. It was not intended for the purpose of explaining the causes behind any changes or trends for the 10-year period. More in-depth research utilizing more complex methodologies is necessary in order to determine any specific reasons for any trends in the number of arrests of juveniles for drug abuse violations.

Appendix

The UCR Program’s arrest data for drug abuse violations are available with breakdowns for the age and sex of the arrestees (both juveniles and adults). The races of the arrestees (both juveniles and adults) are also provided, but without specific age breakdowns. The numbers found on those UCR reports are the actual number of arrests. The FBI’s staff estimates the total number of arrests for drug abuse violations for those agencies that submitted fewer than 12 months of data. For this study, the estimated number of arrests for drug abuse violations for each year and the age, sex, and racial categories were determined in the following manner. First, the estimated total of all arrests for drug abuse violations combined was determined for each year. (See the methodology for Table 29 in Appendix I.) Next, the estimated total of arrests for drug abuse violations was divided by the actual reported total for each year to arrive at a value, or multiplier, for each year. Then, the multiplier for a given year was applied to each actual value of age and sex breakdowns on the reports for that same year to arrive at the estimated value for each category.

Example for Calculating the Estimated Number of Juveniles for Drug Abuse Violations for Age and Sex

A = 1994 Actual Total of Arrests of Juveniles for Drug Abuse Violations by Age and Sex = 125,026

B = 1994 Actual Total of Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations by Age and Sex = 1,062,252

C = 1994 Estimated Total of Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations = 1,351,400

D = 1994 Estimated Total of Arrests of Juveniles for Drug Abuse Violations by Age and Sex = ?

Calculation

D = (C/B) (A) = (1,351,400/1,062,252) (125,026) = 159,058

Because providing the race of the arrestee is voluntary for law enforcement agencies that participate in the UCR Program, this information is often not included on the reports provided to the Program. Therefore, the actual arrest totals often differ from the totals on data that include age and sex information. The UCR staff used the same estimation procedure described above to estimate the total number of arrests for drug abuse violations. The Staff then used the estimated number of these arrests divided by the actual reported total of arrests for drug abuse violations by race for each year in order to determine the multiplier for estimating the arrests by race for a particular year. This second multiplier was then applied to the actual value in each racial category to determine the estimated number of arrests for drug abuse violations for a given year by race. These new (estimated) values were used to produce the tables and charts in this study.

Example for Calculating the Estimated Number of Juveniles for Drug Abuse Violations for Race

A = 1994 Actual Total of Arrests of Juveniles for Drug Abuse Violations by Race = 124,931

B = 1994 Actual Total of Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations by Race = 1,061,563

C = 1994 Estimated Total of Arrests for Drug Abuse Violations = 1,351,400

D = 1994 Estimated Total of Arrests of Juveniles for Drug Abuse Violations by Race = ?

Calculation

D = (C/B) (A) = (1,351,400/1,061,563) (124,931) = 159,041

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