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Show Delinquency Again Up in Southeastern Utah, According to Report From Juvenile Court Tho annual report for the Utah State Juvenile Court recently published by that Court's administrative office shows a substantfal increase in Juvenile Court Cases for tho Southeastern area of Utah. Statewide delinquency cases handled by the Juvenile Juven-ile Court System increased 8 percent in 1971 over 1970. However, in the seven south and eastern Utah counties comprising the Fifth District of the Court (Carbon, Daggett, Dag-gett, Duchsne, Emery, Grand, San Juan and Uintah) the overall insrease in Delinquency Del-inquency was 9 percent with some counties increasing as; much as 56 percent. Uintah county led in the Fifth Dis-trict Dis-trict increase of delinquency cases with a jump from 139 in 1970 to 217 in 1971, an increase in-crease of 5 percent. Carbon County also had a substantial' increase from 280 to 397 M an increase of 42 percent. On the other hand other counties in this area noted some decline de-cline in 1971 with Duchesne having an 11 percent de. crease, Emery a 20 percent decrease and Grand a 26 percent per-cent decrease. San Juan County noted a slight in crease from 108 to 112 cases or 4 percent. Total Cases Total cases referred to the Court, which includes traffic cases, neglect cases, and adult contributing, in addition addi-tion to delinquency, increased increas-ed a total of 12 percent with traffic cases posting a substantial sub-stantial 20 percent increase. Along with the substantial increase in delinquency cases cas-es in Carbon and Uintah ' counties there was also a marked increase in the rate of delinquency cases referred refer-red for every 1,000 child population. pop-ulation. In Carbon this rate jumped from 128 to 180 and in Uintah the rate jumped frm 69 to 110.. Fifty-four percent of all delinquency offenses of-fenses involved criminal type acts and 46 percent involved ttehavior problems or acts illegal for children only. For the first time in many years the percentage of cases involving in-volving juvenile behavior decreased in 1971. Criminal Type Of the criminal type delinquency delin-quency cases, acts against persons such as assult and robbery showed no increase for 1971 but acts against property pro-perty such as theft, burglary, vandalism, auto theft showed . a substantial increase. This category posted an increase of 14 percent fn Southeastern Utah. Cases involving burglary burg-lary almost doubled in this one year period from 57 in 1970 to 113 in 1971, an increase in-crease of 98 percent. There has been a substantial increase in-crease in this particular offense of-fense involving juvenile offenses of-fenses in the state involving 1,245 cases. The other most frequently referred offenses were runaway, 2,791, shoplifting, shop-lifting, 2,455, possessian of tobacco 1,421. Increases in the incidents of burglary were noted in every county in the Fifth District. In Carbon Car-bon County this increase was from 26-38 (46 percent), Duchesne Du-chesne from 8.27 23.7 percent), per-cent), Emery County had 7 cases in 1971 and none in 1970, Grand had three in 1971 and none in 1970. San Juan County increased from ' 12 to 13 cases and Uintah County jumped from 10 to 22 cases (120 percent). Criminal acts against public pub-lic order also took a substantial substan-tial jump in this area of the state in 1971 with an in-increase in-increase of 41 percent. Drug cases jumped from 24 to 47. Cases involving public intoxication intox-ication jumped from 50 to 81. Disturbing the peace 'increased from 28 to 39. Only in the catagory of behavior be-havior problems and acts illegal for children only, did the picture remain constant in the Fifth District. A decrease de-crease was noted in the number num-ber of runaway cases and in cases involving possession of alcohol (from 189 down to 144). Some increase was not-ed not-ed in cases involving children child-ren beyond the control of their parents. Curfew cases lumped from 27 in t970 clear up to 115 in 1971. This pffft- ably signifies an increased enforcement effort t9 reduce other juvenile crimes by more strict enforcement of the curfew laws. Lowest Recidivism faff Notwithstanding the substantial sub-stantial increase in delinqQ. ency cases and in the delln-yuency delln-yuency rate in this area of "the state, the counties comprising com-prising the Fifth District continued to enjoy the lowest recidivism rate in the state. This has been the case for the past three years sine the Juvenile Court computerized computer-ized record keeping system has produced' accurate recidivism re-cidivism statistics. In 1971 65 percent of all delinquency cases referred in the south and eastern counties of the state had no previous court record. This means that only 35 percent had a previous court record. This compares with 41 percent in the Disf-rict Disf-rict One comprising the north end ol the state, 50 percent in District Two comprising com-prising Salt Lake County, 44 percent in District Three covering the center of the state and 40 percent in District Dis-trict Four covering the southern south-ern counties. Also, the com-puter com-puter is able to calculate the serious or chronic recidivism cases and in 1971 only 5 percent per-cent of the cases in the Fifth Fif-th District had been referred to the fourt five or more times before. In District One this figure was 9 percent. In District two, 15 percent, in District three, 10 percent and in District Four, 5 percent. per-cent. Dispositions Imposed The Court report also pre-senited pre-senited information on tfie dispositions that were imposed im-posed by the Juvenile Courts. In the Fifth District of the 1,115 delinquency cases 180 were adjusted non-judicially by the probation department without the necessity of a formal complaint being filed. In 58 cases there were insufficient insuf-ficient facts on the juvenile referrals to justify court action; ac-tion; in 89 cases runaway children were returned without with-out court action. In 63 cases where formal petitions were filed an order was entere'd dismissing the charges for insufficient evidence or lask of prosecution. Probation was ordered in 103 cases. Orders requiring the Juveniles to; work for a public agency in lieu of a fine were entered in 117 cases. Juveniles were placed on suspended committment commit-tment to the state school in 31 cases and 10 juveniles were committed to the. state school for indeterminate terms. Three children were placed plac-ed in the State Training School by Court Order. Twenty-three were placed in group or foster homes for care. Fines were assessed in 116 delinquency cases' and orders requiring juvenTTes to pay for damage or loss resulting re-sulting from their acts were entered in 55 cases. In the 681 traffic cases handled during dur-ing 1971 fines were imposed in 407 cases. Work orders were entered in 98 cases, and in 26 cases the youth ffi-volved ffi-volved was ordered to surrender sur-render his license to the Court and was restrained from driving. Juvenile drivers driv-ers were ordered to attend traffic school in 111 cases. In 38 percent of the 68 neglect neg-lect cases filed Court Orders were entered placing the custody cus-tody of the children involved in foster homes or homes of relatives. It has been noted that after af-ter several years of unchanging unchang-ing or decreasing popula tions in" the south and eastern east-ern Utah counties, 1971 marked mark-ed the first year of substantial substan-tial growth for this area. This was especially marked in the Carbon and Uintah county area. This could profj-ably profj-ably account for some of the substantial increases in juvenile ju-venile court cases for this area. It is also well to keep in mind that substantial progress pro-gress has also been made in the last couple of years in upgrading law enforcement enforce-ment throughout file state. The initial result of such upgrading often is t9 increase the number of cases appre- hended and referred to the courts. Thus, some of the increases noted in 1971 may well reflect increased law enforcement efficiency in the area of juvenile delinquency. Preliminary figures show that total court cases and especially delinquency cases are continuing to increase in this area. Projections based on the first six months f 1972 show that juvenile cases could jump as much as 20 percent over 1971. These Increases In-creases have placed considerable consid-erable strain upon established estab-lished court staffs and facilities. fac-ilities. Efforts are now be-ng be-ng made to' increase ffie pro bation and clerical staff Tn the Fifth District and present pre-sent staff are redoubling . their efforts to give aSS-quate aSS-quate attention to every case in the face of substantially increasing referrals. |