Annual arrests in the USA because the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have dropped by 25%, based on a new analysis launched Thursday by the Council on Legal Justice.
“Grownup arrests haven’t come again up from that 2020 plummet,” mentioned the report’s lead writer, Stephanie Kennedy, Ph.D., coverage director on the CCJ. Kennedy analyzed FBI knowledge from 1980 by 2024. Arrest knowledge for 2025 most definitely will not be launched till subsequent Fall, Kennedy informed CBS Information.
In 2019, roughly 10 million individuals had been arrested, based on FBI knowledge. That quantity dropped to about 7.5 million individuals in 2024.
Male arrests decline, whereas the share of feminine arrests will increase
Though males make up a majority of arrests, the share of feminine arrests has elevated, with women making up 31% of all juvenile arrests in 2024 and girls making up about 27% of grownup arrests the identical yr, the evaluation discovered.
Kennedy cautioned that the info should not be interpreted as feminine arrests rising uncontrolled, however as an indication of the male arrest charges dropping quickly. In reality, she mentioned, the info exhibits that the feminine grownup arrest charge peaked in 2009 and has dropped steadily since. By 2024, it was about 42% decrease than the 2009 peak.
Against this, the height for males’s arrests was in 1989; in 2024, it was about 66% decrease, based on the evaluation. Ladies and men are likely to enter the justice system by completely different pathways, based on researchers who’ve examined the legal justice system.
“Males usually tend to be arrested for violent crime, whereas girls’s system contact is extra typically tied to trauma, relationships and survival-related conduct,” Kennedy mentioned.
Nevertheless, the variety of incarcerated girls has elevated by greater than 600% prior to now a number of a long time, rising from a complete of 26,326 in 1980 to 186,244 in 2023, according to the nonprofit The Sentencing Venture.
Since 2020, girls’s incarceration has climbed sooner than males’s, with jail charges up 33% for girls versus 17% for males, and jail charges for girls up 9%, according to the CCJ. In 2023, greater than 1 million girls had been below the supervision of the legal authorized system.
Juvenile and drug offense arrests drop
Juvenile carjackings and motor vehicle thefts have grabbed headlines lately, however juvenile arrest numbers stay decrease than in 2019, based on the Council on Legal Justice evaluation.
“I used to be significantly stunned by the low charges of juvenile arrests since 2019, although the development started in about 2008,” Kennedy mentioned. Juvenile arrests accounted for about 19% of all arrests in 1980, and seven% in 2024.
However the report additionally famous that completely different juvenile teams had numerous outcomes. “Violent and property arrest charges for girls and boys rose, drug arrests declined for boys however elevated for ladies, and post-2020 will increase had been particularly pronounced amongst Black and Asian youth,” based on the report.
Arrests for drug offenses general fell dramatically lately, as properly, the report discovered.
“The nationwide drug offense charge cratered,” Kennedy mentioned. “It is half of what it was in 2019 for each adults and juveniles.” The drug offense arrest charge in 2024 was 591 per 100,000 adults, dropping 50% from its 2019 degree, the evaluation discovered. At its peak in 2006, there have been 1,537 arrests per 100,000 adults.
Kennedy attributed a few of that to states passing legal guidelines that scale back penalties for a lot of drug offenses. In lots of instances, sentencing regulation has caught up with the fact on the bottom, she mentioned.
“When speaking to regulation enforcement, they are saying they’re going to arrest in the event that they really feel like they should,” Kennedy mentioned.
Some regulation enforcement officers agree that making low-level drug arrests might be time-consuming and finally not efficient.
“The final word motive why regulation enforcement is just not prioritizing low-level drug arrests is due to the judicial frustrations they’re coping with,” mentioned Rodney Harrison, former Suffolk County police commissioner and a CBS Information regulation enforcement analyst.
“The dangers do not outweigh the means. If a regulation enforcement official makes an arrest for a misdemeanor cost, greater than doubtless than not that particular person can be launched earlier than the top of that officer’s tour,” Harrison mentioned.
