Officials in the criminal justice system have known for years that males between the ages of 16 and 24 are the group most likely to commit crimes, so being able to predict how large that segment of the population will be in coming years is crucial for planning, a new report concludes.

The 443-page study, “Crime and the Criminal Justice System in Arizona,” reports not only crime statistics for the state for the period from 1995 to 2002, but also lists spending for every level of the criminal justice system, from the state on down to local justice courts.

Connection Between Budgets, Population And Manpower

The Arizona Criminal Justice Commission issued the report, based on information collected by the agency’s Statistical Analysis Center. Steve Ballance, director of the Statistical Analysis Center, said the information contained in the report demonstrates “the relationship between budgets, the dramatic rise in population, and the manpower used to control and reduce crime in Arizona.”

One piece of data that policymakers, the courts and law enforcement officials could use is an accurate projection of the population of males ages 16 to 24, the report states.

“The last set of projections was released in 1997 and was based on 1996 estimates,” the report states. “Additionally, the last available projections were only done by single year for ages 0-19, leaving out the 20-24 age group.”

The report continues: “Crucial to law enforcement and the criminal justice agencies is information on the critical, at-risk of offending 16-24 male age group. Yearly population estimates are generated by [the Department of Economic Security], but they are not broken down by age or gender…. Single-year age and gender population information at various geographic scales is quite useful to a number of agencies, including law enforcement, criminal justice planning, health care and education. Given this benefit, the development and routine maintenance of an official DES product that would provide such estimates should be made a priority in Arizona. Without a clearly designated priority for the creation of such a product, limited resources and the volume of demands would leave this priority at risk, especially in a climate of increased need to reduce budgets.”

The report notes that the critical population segment of males 16 to 24 years old increased more than 30 per cent from 1990 to 2000, while the population of the state as a whole increased about 38 per cent in the same period, from 3.7 million to 5.1 million.

FYI

The full report is available on the Internet at http://acjc.state.az.us/pubs/home/1WhitePaper_Final_Web_Version_10232003.pdf.—