California: Record-high Youth Numbers, Record-high Diversity, Record-Low Youth Crime
July 12, 2010
Never has California had more youth, no place has more racial diversity (68% of Californians under age 18 are Latino, Asian, Black, Native, or other categories not of European origin, up from 23%in 1960). At the same time, the stateCriminal Justice Statistics Center‘s new figures show both serious and misdemeanor crime rates have fallen to the lowest level ever recorded. That is, contrary to the panic-mongering “experts” like Northeastern University’s constantly quoted James Alan Fox and his media worshippers, more youth and more diversity means less crime.
But the fact that experts were wrong again on youths, as they so often are, doesn’t mean you’ll hear anything about this massive teenage crime drop from officials or mainstream or alternative media. Bizarre as it sounds, these experts, interest groups, and news media need more youth crime to push their own agendas–that is, declines actually are bad news.
In the real world, of course, California’s crime trends (also reflected to a lesser extent in national youth crime rates) are a tremendously hopeful development as the United States moves toward a multicultural global society. As California’s teenage youth population rose by 3 million over the last 50 years through 2009, total and felony crime levels among youth fell to their lowest trough ever recorded, and violent crime fell to its lowest rate since 1971. Even this impressive trend understates California’s true youth crime decline, since many violent, property, drug, and other youth crimes in the 1950s and ’60s were masked under vague, general “status offense” or “delinquent tendency” charges.
California’s numbers–and you get them all on this site, from the first in 1954 to the most recent in 2009, speak for themselves. This is an enormous social trend, and it demands more attention.
California youth crime rates by offense, population size, and racial diversity, 1950s-2009*
| Rates of arrest per 100,000 population age 10-17 for: | Population age 10-17 | ||||||
| Year | All offenses | Felonies | Misdemeanor/status | Violent crime | Property crime | millions | Percent nonwhite |
| 1950 | 1.012 | ||||||
| 1.050 | |||||||
| 1.100 | |||||||
| 1.150 | |||||||
| 1,316.4 | 1.200 | ||||||
| 55 | 1,479.4 | 1.250 | |||||
| 1,595.3 | 1.400 | ||||||
| 9,353.4 | 1,687.3 | 7,666.1 | 191.2 | 1,417.1 | 1.550 | ||
| 8,628.3 | 1,612.3 | 7,016.0 | 179.3 | 1,366.2 | 1.750 | ||
| 8,242.6 | 1,412.2 | 6,830.4 | 167.7 | 1,179.8 | 1.950 | ||
| 1960 | 8,392.9 | 1,586.7 | 6,806.2 | 178.1 | 1,274.9 | 2.115 | 22.7% |
| 8,350.3 | 1,498.5 | 6,851.8 | 169.8 | 1,270.8 | 2.205 | 23.2% | |
| 8,918.6 | 1,589.3 | 7,329.3 | 182.0 | 1,355.9 | 2.296 | 23.9% | |
| 10,000.4 | 1,700.3 | 8,300.1 | 193.7 | 1,458.4 | 2.384 | 24.8% | |
| 10,676.5 | 1,873.4 | 8,803.1 | 199.9 | 1,604.0 | 2.466 | 25.7% | |
| 65 | 10,716.8 | 1,820.0 | 8,896.8 | 181.0 | 1,542.3 | 2.542 | 26.7% |
| 11,613.4 | 1,991.2 | 9,622.1 | 199.3 | 1,605.7 | 2.610 | 27.6% | |
| 12,124.3 | 2,427.2 | 9,697.1 | 235.0 | 1,698.1 | 2.667 | 28.6% | |
| 13,493.5 | 3,312.2 | 10,181.3 | 289.8 | 1,951.2 | 2.716 | 29.6% | |
| 14,310.1 | 3,668.8 | 10,641.3 | 322.5 | 2,037.4 | 2.754 | 30.6% | |
| 1970 | 12,591.5 | 3,301.4 | 9,290.1 | 310.6 | 1,817.5 | 3.041 | 26.6% |
| 11,120.0 | 3,305.5 | 7,814.5 | 356.1 | 1,865.1 | 3.123 | 28.6% | |
| 10,108.4 | 3,259.4 | 6,848.9 | 429.2 | 1,836.5 | 3.171 | 30.3% | |
| 11,083.4 | 3,700.0 | 7,383.5 | 475.6 | 1,908.1 | 3.206 | 31.8% | |
| 12,663.9 | 4,173.9 | 8,490.0 | 528.4 | 2,201.0 | 3.223 | 33.3% | |
| 75 | 11,520.2 | 3,970.2 | 7,550.0 | 551.0 | 2,291.7 | 3.220 | 34.7% |
| 11,047.2 | 3,230.0 | 7,817.2 | 514.2 | 2,213.3 | 3.189 | 36.0% | |
| 9,893.4 | 3,246.1 | 6,647.2 | 511.6 | 2,283.8 | 3.150 | 37.1% | |
| 9,215.1 | 3,258.3 | 5,956.7 | 500.4 | 2,280.8 | 3.100 | 38.1% | |
| 9,741.6 | 3,312.5 | 6,429.0 | 551.4 | 2,246.2 | 3.054 | 39.1% | |
| 1980 | 9,380.4 | 3,193.7 | 6,186.7 | 555.6 | 2,138.5 | 3.049 | 40.2% |
| 8,684.8 | 2,993.1 | 5,691.7 | 525.1 | 1,992.7 | 3.108 | 42.6% | |
| 7,955.0 | 2,715.0 | 5,240.1 | 453.6 | 1,815.9 | 3.110 | 45.0% | |
| 7,049.6 | 2,288.3 | 4,761.3 | 390.1 | 1,472.0 | 3.111 | 47.3% | |
| 7,213.8 | 2,228.3 | 4,985.5 | 377.1 | 1,372.6 | 3.096 | 49.2% | |
| 85 | 7,436.0 | 2,367.1 | 5,068.9 | 394.8 | 1,477.8 | 3.106 | 50.8% |
| 7,567.5 | 2,444.4 | 5,123.1 | 396.7 | 1,484.7 | 3.117 | 52.1% | |
| 7,178.5 | 2,362.2 | 4,816.3 | 391.5 | 1,420.8 | 3.115 | 53.0% | |
| 7,405.6 | 2,609.3 | 4,796.3 | 448.7 | 1,585.2 | 3.095 | 53.7% | |
| 7,722.6 | 2,885.8 | 4,836.8 | 561.6 | 1,721.8 | 3.085 | 54.0% | |
| 1990 | 7,536.2 | 2,839.3 | 4,696.9 | 641.9 | 1,670.6 | 3.218 | 54.8% |
| 7,366.9 | 2,812.8 | 4,554.0 | 635.4 | 1,650.3 | 3.330 | 55.6% | |
| 7,163.5 | 2,709.1 | 4,454.4 | 624.5 | 1,558.1 | 3.451 | 56.6% | |
| 7,208.3 | 2,599.0 | 4,609.4 | 610.1 | 1,442.8 | 3.539 | 57.5% | |
| 7,142.2 | 2,548.5 | 4,593.7 | 626.1 | 1,349.6 | 3.610 | 58.2% | |
| 95 | 6,950.4 | 2,316.4 | 4,634.0 | 596.2 | 1,225.9 | 3.672 | 58.8% |
| 7,327.8 | 2,288.7 | 5,039.1 | 590.3 | 1,201.2 | 3.742 | 59.4% | |
| 7,223.1 | 2,161.5 | 5,061.6 | 548.6 | 1,080.6 | 3.828 | 60.0% | |
| 6,931.1 | 1,954.0 | 4,977.2 | 504.1 | 961.9 | 3.895 | 60.7% | |
| 6,703.1 | 1,729.0 | 4,974.1 | 476.2 | 829.1 | 3.962 | 61.3% | |
| 2000 | 5,963.3 | 1,567.3 | 4,396.0 | 407.5 | 745.2 | 4.076 | 61.7% |
| 5,713.0 | 1,520.2 | 4,192.8 | 417.3 | 706.5 | 4.210 | 62.2% | |
| 5,294.7 | 1,418.9 | 3,875.8 | 365.8 | 641.4 | 4.337 | 62.9% | |
| 5,014.0 | 1,366.8 | 3,647.1 | 354.9 | 605.3 | 4.454 | 63.7% | |
| 4,794.1 | 1,315.8 | 3,478.3 | 341.0 | 558.4 | 4.550 | 64.5% | |
| 2005 | 4,734.1 | 1,323.4 | 3,410.6 | 337.3 | 524.5 | 4.621 | 65.2% |
| 4,996.3 | 1,398.8 | 3,597.5 | 366.5 | 551.5 | 4.660 | 66.0% | |
| 5,086.6 | 1,421.5 | 3,665.1 | 387.6 | 544.1 | 4.656 | 66.7% | |
| 4,972.6 | 1,410.0 | 3,562.6 | 380.3 | 546.5 | 4.607 | 67.3% | |
| 4,510.4 | 1,290.2 | 3,220.1 | 339.0 | 498.1 | 4.538 | 67.7% | |
| 2010 | |||||||
*Note: Violent crimes are murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault; property crimes are burglary, felony theft, motor vehicle theft, and check/credit-card fraud. Population age 10-17 is in millions. Percent nonwhite refers to the percent that is Latino, Asian, Black, Native, or of other non-European origin. Blank cells indicate no data are available for those years, all in the 1950s, when state crime and population reports were less complete.