Juvenile Court Statistics 2005. - Office of Juvenile Justice and ...

Appendix A: MethodsCountof ies NumberTable A–1: 2005 Stratum Profiles for Delinquency DataCounties reporting compatible dataNumber of countiesCounty population Counties Case- Court- Percentage ofStratum ages 10–17 in stratum level level Total* juvenile population1 Fewer than 13,000 2,618 1,645 135 1,780 71%2 13,000–54,900 335 235 14 249 743 54,901–145,000 101 74 2 76 774 More than 145,000 31 29 2 30 98Total 3,085 1,983 153 2,135 80* Some counties reported both case-level and court-level data; therefore, the total number of counties reporting delinquency data is not equalto the number of counties reporting case-level data plus the number of counties reporting court-level data.Countof ies NumberTable A–2: 2005 Stratum Profiles for Status Offense DataCounties reporting compatible dataNumber of countiesCounty population Counties Case- Court- Percentage ofStratum ages 10–17 in stratum level level Total juvenile population1 Fewer than 13,000 2,618 1,701 172 1,873 74%2 13,000–54,900 335 215 28 243 723 54,901–145,000 101 59 7 66 684 More than 145,000 31 24 5 29 95Total 3,085 1,999 212 2,211 77The aggregation of the JCS-compatiblestandardized case-level data filesconstitutes the Archive’s nationalcase-level database. The compileddata from jurisdictions that contributeonly court-level JCS-compatiblestatistics constitute the nationalcourt-level database. Together, thesetwo multijurisdictional databases(case-level and court-level) are usedto generate the Archive’s nationalestimates of delinquency and statusoffense cases.In 2005, case-level data describing1,174,857 delinquency cases handledby 1,983 jurisdictions in 38 States metthe Archive’s criteria for inclusion inthe development of national delinquencyestimates. Compatible datawere available from Alabama, Alaska,Arizona, Arkansas, California,Connecticut, District of Columbia,Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan,Minnesota, Missouri, Montana,Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, NewMexico, New York, North Carolina,Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania,Rhode Island, South Carolina,South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,Utah, Virginia, Washington, WestVirginia, and Wisconsin. These courtshad jurisdiction over 76% of thenation’s juvenile population in 2005.Compatible court-level aggregate statisticson an additional 51,570 delinquencycases from 153 jurisdictionswere used from California, Idaho,Illinois, Indiana, and Vermont. In all,the Archive collected compatiblecase-level data and court-level statisticson delinquency cases from 2,135jurisdictions containing 80% of theNation’s juvenile population in 2005(table A–1).Case-level data describing 95,660 formallyhandled status offense casesfrom 1,999 jurisdictions in 36 statesmet the criteria for inclusion in thesample for 2005. The States includedAlabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas,California, Connecticut, District ofColumbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii,Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland,Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, NewMexico, North Carolina, Ohio,Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania,Rhode Island, South Carolina, SouthDakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah,Virginia, Washington, West Virginia,and Wisconsin. These courts hadjurisdiction over 69% of the juvenilepopulation. An additional 212 jurisdictionsin 4 states (Idaho, Indiana,New York, and Vermont) had compatiblecourt-level aggregate statistics on13,673 petitioned status offensecases. Altogether, compatible caseleveland court-level data on petitionedstatus offense cases wereavailable from 2,211 jurisdictions containing77% of the U.S. juvenile populationin 2005 (table A–2).A list of States contributing case-leveldata (either delinquency or petitionedstatus offense data), the variableseach reports, and the percentage ofcases containing each variable arepresented in table A–3.94Juvenile Court Statistics 2005