Rates and estimates are based on self-reported data from interviews conducted for the National Crime Victimization Survey. In most cases, crimes were reported by the teenagers themselves. If the teen was age 12 or 13, a knowledgeable adult household member may have responded for the teen.
For this indicator, violent crime includes robbery, simple assault, aggravated assault, and rape/sexual assault. Simple assault is defined as attack without a weapon resulting in either no injury, minor injury, or an undetermined injury requiring less than two days of hospitalization. Aggravated assault is defined as attack or attempted attack with a weapon, regardless of whether an injury occurred, and attack without a weapon when serious injury results.
These estimates do not include victims of homicide.
Child Trends. (2018). Violent Crime Victimization. Retrieved from https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/violent-crime-victimization.
1. Although these statistics are based on victims’ self-reports, it is important to note that the majority of child and youth victims of crimes are “hidden.” That is, they are not known to police, school, or medical authorities. One estimate is that only 13 percent of children victimized in the past year were known to police, and 46 percent were known to school, police, or medical authorities. Among the serious victimizations largely unknown by authorities were dating violence and completed and attempted rape. Certain groups of victims—boys, Hispanics, and youth with higher socioeconomic status—were especially less likely to be known to authorities. See Finkelhor, D., Ormrod, R., Turner, H., & Hamby, S. (2012). Child and youth victimization known to police, school, and medical authorities. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/235394.pdf.
2. Hispanic youth may be of any race.