Howell, J.C., ed. Guide for Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. The classification of juveniles as serious, violent, and chronic offenders is an important legal distinction. Additionally, the consequences of being placed in one of these categories are critical to the allocation of scarce treatment resources. Generally, such determinations are made at the State and local levels.
Definitions used in different research and statistics-gathering efforts often vary.
While this upper age is 17 in a majority of jurisdictions, it ranges from 15 to 17 years of age. Serious juvenile offenders are those adjudicated delinquent for committing any felony offense, including larceny or theft, burglary or breaking and entering, extortion, arson, and drug trafficking or other controlled dangerous substance violation. Violent juvenile offenders are those serious juvenile offenders adjudicated delinquent for one of the following felony offenses homicide, rape or other felony sex offense, mayhem, kidnaping, robbery, or aggravated assault. Chronic juvenile offenders are juveniles adjudicated delinquent for committing three or more delinquent offenses. These definitions include juveniles convicted in criminal court for particular offense types.