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Juvenile arrests drop locally, statewide and nationally

JANESVILLE — The drop in juvenile arrests in Janesville mirrors a drop in crime in Wisconsin and nationally.

Juvenile arrests in Wisconsin appear to have dropped significantly from 1997 through 2006, according to a Wisconsin State Journal review.

Likewise, juvenile arrests from 2003-07 in Janesville “seem to be tracking in a similar manner,’’ said Janesville Police Department Deputy Chief David Moore.

Wisconsin’s more than 350 police jurisdictions are required to report their arrests each year using guidelines set by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

For those 17 and younger, three categories of arrests are tabulated and reported by the state Office of Justice Assistance:

-- Index arrests for serious offenses such as murder and rape;

-- Non-index arrests, for all other less serious offenses;

-- Status violations (a subset of nonindex arrests) for things such as curfew violations and runaways.

Each category showed decreases from 1997-2006—the most recent year for which data are available—as did all but two of 16 specific types of crime tracked by OJA over time.

Index crimes fell nearly 41 percent (29,554 to 17,490), non-index fell 20 percent (115,446 to 92,328) and status violations fell nearly 37 percent (36,310 to 23,053).

The only two offenses tracked in which there were increases were drug offenses (4,936 to 5,088) and drunken driving (543 to 786).

In Janesville, Moore said juvenile arrests for serious and less serious offenses were down from 2003-07 due to preventive efforts and officers and staff sitting on many boards and community efforts such as Partners in Prevention in Rock County and the Truancy Abatement and Transition Education Center, which address those issues with kids.

“We have a long-standing and close working relationship with the Janesville School District in that we have almost 5 percent of officers assigned to the schools—one in each high school and one in each middle school. That’s a significant resource we have assigned to the schools,’’ Moore said.

“Many of these groups look for a law enforcement component to achieve their goal,’’ Moore said.

In the category of most serious crimes, not only were the overall arrests down from 553 to 320 in Janesville for 2003-07, the city also saw a significant drop in theft, which was reduced from 462 to 273 arrests during that time.

“While Janesville’s population increased during those years, arrests have gone down. That’s another encouraging sign,” Moore said.

The number of arrests for curfew violations in Janesville dropped from 58 in 2004 to 28 in 2005 before climbing back up to 73 and 90 in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

Moore explained why.

“In the last few years, we designated some evenings to conducting sweeps of the city for (curfew) violations and have made arrests,’’ he said.

Janesville did not have a curfew ordinance in 2003, Moore said.

The number of runaways dropped gradually in Janesville from 276 to 206 from 2003 to 2007.

Moore said the recently released statistics are encouraging.

“If you look at some specific years, you will see the numbers adjust up or down, but the long-term trends are more telling of the direction.”

However, he cautioned, “Law enforcement and government can do only so much to truly make change. It really needs to begin with proper parenting and positive family support.’’