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JUVENILE SUSTAINED PETITIONS
RATE OF SUSTAINED PETITIONS DROPS BY HALF IN FIVE YEARS.
Description Of Indicator
This indicator reports the number and percent of juvenile petitions that are sustained. After a juvenile arrest, a referral is typically made by the arresting officer to the Probation Department for further processing. The probation officer decides whether a referral is dismissed, the juvenile is placed on informal probation or a petition will be sought for a formal court hearing. When a petition is sustained by the court, the juvenile becomes a ward of the court. A ward is either allowed to go home under the supervision of a probation officer or ordered for detention in a juvenile institution.
Why is this indicator important?
Sustained juvenile petitions are similar to an adult criminal conviction. They indicate where and what types of crimes are occurring among youth. Many agencies have a role to play in helping to meet California’s goal of rehabilitation for youth who have a sustained petition, including schools, social services agencies and community-based organizations. Knowledge about sustained juvenile petitions can help provide strategic direction to prevention, early intervention and rehabilitation efforts in Orange County.
Findings
• In 2017, there were 3,124 total juvenile petitions.1 Of these, 1,362 were sustained petitions (43.6%), a 48.7% decrease from 2013 (2,657).
• The rate of sustained petitions was 403 per 100,000 youth ages 10 to 17 years old in 2017, a 49.7% decrease from 2013 (800 per 100,000 youth).
• Sustained petitions were highest among youth 15 to 17 years old who received 89.3% of sustained petition decisions, followed by youth 12 to 14 years old (10.6%) and youth 11 years and younger (0.1%).
• When assessed by race and ethnicity, Hispanic youth (78.7%) had the most sustained petitions, followed by White (12.2%), Black (5.0%), Other (2.3%) and Asian (1.8%) youth in 2017.
• Across genders, the vast majority of sustained petitions were on juvenile males (82.8%), with juvenile females accounting for 17.2% of sustained petitions in 2017.