Juveniles Arrested for Murder: A Statistical Typology of Male Offenders

• In Event: Unpacking the Social-Contextual Correlates of Youth Violence Over Time

Abstract

Although juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs) have been of great interest to researchers, policymakers, and the public since the 1970s, we have little understanding of the heterogeneity that may exist among these violent offenders. Specifically, most research on juvenile murderers has relied on small clinical samples, and there are no empirically-driven typologies of JHOs using nationwide samples of offenders. Additionally, no prior study has examined the statistical regularities between certain sub-types of JHOs and the unique crimes they may commit. Therefore, using a national sample of approximately 50,000 male juvenile murderers obtained from 37 years of data in the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR), we aimed to develop the first statistical typology of JHOs in the United States. Using key characteristics of the offenders (race, age, location) and their murders (victim features, weapon used, circumstances) as grouping covariates, we utilized a Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to identify statistical sub-types of juvenile-perpetrated murders. These groups had unique compositions for key features of the crime, and the offenders who committed them. These differences may be critical from an intelligence standpoint, when linking a unique type of crime to a specific type of JHO. Additional practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Authors

• Bryanna Hahn Fox, University of South Florida

• Kathleen M. Heide, University of South Florida

• Cedric Michel, The University of Tampa

• John Cochran, University of South Florida

• Norair Khachatryan, University of South Florida