Report: Youth Crime Drops in San Mateo County

Youth arrest rates in San Mateo County are on the decline, matching a statewide trend that shows youth crime in California has plummeted to an all-time low this year.

The downturn is documented in a new report from the California Sentencing Institute (CASI). The report includes data and interactive maps about rates of both adult and juvenile arrests and incarcerations from each of California's 58 counties.

The latest data for 2011 from the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center show arrests of youths under age 18 fell by 20 percent in California from 2010 to 2011, reaching their lowest level since statewide statistics were first compiled in 1954.

In San Mateo County, the number of youth arrested fell by almost 16 percent between 2009 and 2010. Incarceration rates have dropped slightly from 2009 to 2010 from 276 incarcerations per 1,000 youth arrests down to 249, the report showed.

Some of the factors are policy shifts. A statewide marijuana reform law, introduced by Marin's state Senator Mark Leno, went into effect on Jan. 1, 2011, reducing most simple marijuana possessions to an infraction involving a mere citation rather than a criminal arrest. That reform reduced youth marijuana possession arrests by 61 percent statewide in one year, from nearly 15,000 in 2010 to 5,800 in 2011.

Here are the annual bookings and average daily population at San Mateo County Juvenile Hall for the past three years:

YEAR

Juvenile Hall
bookings per 100,000

Juvenile Hall
Incarcration Rates per 1,000 youth arrests 

2009

1,077

276

2010

930

249

PATCH WANTS TO KNOW - What do you think of these statistics? Do you feel as though youth crime has gone down in San Mateo County? Are there other changes you feel our local juvenile justice system needs to make? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.