Juvenile justice reforms drive a spike in criminal offenses

Juvenile crime in California is rising – and rising by a lot. 

Last year, the number of juveniles arrested for all types of offenses reached 32,874, which was a staggering increase of 70 percent from just a few years ago in 2021, and since 2019 juvenile homicides rose 82 percent. 

But juvenile crime trends can be a bit misleading if one doesn’t consider the simple fact that juveniles don’t stay juveniles. They grow up and, in many cases, become adults while their crimes are investigated and they are eventually charged.  

This is a process that can take years, and it can dramatically change statistical outcomes. For example, there were 68 juvenile homicide arrests in 2019, but the actual number of homicide cases processed in the juvenile courts was 287. 

In 2024 there were 124 juvenile homicide arrests, but there were 471 homicide referrals – 155 of these cases involved defendants between the ages of 21 and 25.    

What ends up happening is that these adults are often found “fit” to have their cases remain in juvenile court despite the seriousness of their crime. Fitness is based on who they were when the crime was committed, not who they are now. In 2024, only five juvenile cases were transferred to adult court.  

California’s juvenile justice system is predicated on the belief that juvenile offenders can, with very few exceptions, be rehabilitated by their twenty-fifth birthdays. Additionally, juvenile convictions don’t require a term of probation beyond their twenty-fifth birthday and sex offenders are not required to register. In only the most egregious cases can prosecutors petition for two-year sentence extensions and those extensions must be decided by a jury.  

The juvenile crime stats for 2024 are noteworthy for another reason, in that they represent the first full year of data since California’s Department of Juvenile Justice closed. New admissions had stopped in 2020.

The closure was based on money, politics and ideology. The state saved money by transferring the costs of incarceration and rehabilitation to the counties. The state was also able to eliminate a political headache by getting rid of responsibility for the negative perceptions many held about conditions in the Department. 

State decision makers were also driven by the belief that juveniles are better treated close to home, which meant the state would no longer house the most dangerous juvenile offenders, as is done with adults, dumping responsibility to counties instead.  

While these reforms were all well-intended, there is no better cautionary tale than the case of Adrian Gonzalez from Santa Cruz County who allegedly kidnapped, raped, and murdered 8-year old Maddy Middleton in July 2015.  

At the time of his crime, Gonzalez was 15 years old and under the law at that time the District Attorney charged him as an adult. However, the charge would be short-lived as Gonzalez became the beneficiary of California’s juvenile justice reforms when the State Supreme Court extended the benefit retroactively to all juveniles held in custody, so he remained in the juvenile system, and he was sentenced to the maximum term allowed: incarceration until his twenty-fifth birthday.   

As his twenty-fifth birthday approached, Gonzalez petitioned for release. The District Attorney opposed release on the grounds that an offender was eligible for a two-year recommitment if he or she failed to rehabilitate while in custody. 

Fortunately, a judge and ultimately a jury agreed with the District Attorney and Gonzalez was returned to custody. But the case shows how close the reform movement got to sending a dangerous criminal back into society prematurely. 

Perhaps it’s time to reconsider defining juvenile acts solely by age. Is there really a meaningful difference between one offender who is 17 years old and one who is 18 if the crimes are the same? 

While there is evidence that out-of-custody therapeutic programming can benefit many youthful offenders, the rising crime statistics of the past five years suggest the state shouldn’t be so quick to abandon the system as it was just a few years ago.   

Steve Smith is a senior fellow in urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute.