More people have criminal legal issues than you might think. Many young adults, even here in Vancouver Washington, have been arrested for something other than minor traffic violations according to a study highlighted in a recent ABC News report Study: Significant Number of Young Americans Get Arrested
Interestingly, the study in the Journal of Pediatrics said that by the age of 23, 41 percent of Americans have been arrested for some type of crime. More than 7,000 people were surveyed for this national study between 1997 and 2008. Between 25 and 41 percent had been arrested by 23, and 16 to 27 percent said they’d been arrested by the age of 18.
“Not all of the young people remained in the study for all 11 years, accounting for the uncertainty reflected in the wide ranges of the study’s findings,” said the ABC report by Carrie Gann.
The study didn’t say what times of crimes the survey respondents were accused of committing. But the study’s authors said the results may show that there are factors in young people’s lives or health that could put them at a higher risk of committing a crime.
“An arrest usually happens in context. There are usually other things going on in a kid’s life,” ABC quoted study author Robert Brame as saying. Brame is a professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
The numbers are a sharp rise from 1965, the last time similar studies were done. The authors believe that the study shows we as a society need to better tread youth’s physical, mental and social needs in order to help keep them out of the criminal system.
“A report of an arrest could be a gateway to a broader conversation about what’s going on,” the ABC reported author Brame saying.
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