The Current Focus on Youth Crime THIS PAPER WILL DISCUSS BRIEFLY THE CURRENT SOCIAL CLIMATE regarding

youth crime. The current media attention on juvenile crime has many in the community believing that we are in the midst of an unprecedented juvenile crime wave. Media sources carry regular reports about high speed car chases; the worst examples of graffiti vandalism are brought to our notice; and we are frequently tempted to believe that juveniles are responsible for the bulk of serious crime. However, there is no statistical evidence that juvenile crime is increasing at a faster rate than adult crime. It is true that recorded crime has increased substantially in most offence categories in South Australia in the past ten years. Nevertheless, it is also evident that: n juvenile offenders are more likely to be apprehended for property crimes, rather than crimes of violence against the person; n the proportion of juveniles among individuals apprehended has decreased in almost all "selected offence " categories used by the South Australian Police Department (see Figure 1); n the total number of juvenile appearances before Children's Aid Panels and the Children's Court was lower in 1990-91 than it was five years earlier (see Figure 2); n current methods of recording tend to over-estimate the number of crimes attributable to juveniles. The over-estimate of crimes due to juvenile offenders occurs because: National Conference on Juvenile Justice 168 n juveniles have a greater tendency than adults to offend in groups, thus inflating the apprehension statistics, and n it is generally accepted that juveniles are more likely to be detected than adults. One must also acknowledge that one reason for the lower numbers of juvenile appearances before courts and panels is the decline in that section of the South Australian population aged ten to seventeen