Prime Time For Juvenile Crime?

The best way to prevent juvenile crime is to offer after-school programs ranging from sports to movie clubs, according to a criminology professor who analyzed recent FBI statistics on young violent criminals.

Not surprisingly, children and teen-agers are more likely to commit crimes between the hours of 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. when school is out and parents aren't home to supervise them.

"That's when we need to better supervise our kids," James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University, told CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen.

Forty-eight percent of all juvenile crimes occur during this period, according to Fox.

Fox analyzed nearly 44,000 violent offenses committed by juveniles ages 10 to 17 in 1996, the most recent statistics available. The figures were for eight states - Idaho, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia - gathered through the FBI's National Incident Based Reporting System.

Of those crimes, just under 40,000 were assaults, 77 were homicides, 116 were kidnappings, about 2,000 were sex assaults and some 2,300 were robberies.

"It's not petty stuff. This is serious crime committed by teenagers," Fox said.

About 45 percent of the perpetrators were 16- and 17-year-olds, and three-quarters of them were boys. Sixty-one percent were white.

The crimes spike most dramatically on school days between the hour of 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., when nearly 15 percent of all reported juvenile crimes are committed.

Fox acknowledged the findings aren't exactly rocket science.

"Kids, when they're not supervised, get in trouble," he said Monday.

Young people may turn to crime because, quite simply, they are bored.

Fox said the price of establishing after-school programs depends on the community and the types of services offered. But he added that the benefits are enormous.

President Clinton has been advocating after-school programs. His administration estimates that more than 28 million school-age children have both parents or their only parent in the work force, and at least five million of those children are home alone after school.

Truant children who have serious behavior problems might not be convinced to participate in an after-school intramural sports program or a violin lesson, Fox said. But the "soft-core offenders" - those students who drift toward violence for lack of anything else to do - would benefit greatly, he said.

"Sixty percent of the kids in the country do not have full-time parental supervision. We need to step up to the plate and provide alternatives for this prime time for juvenile crime. After-school programs, whether in the school setting or in the community, makes an awful lot of sense," Fox said.
"You can pay for the programs now," he said, "or pray for the victims later."