Restorative Justice and Crime Reduction: Barron County’s Substantial Decrease in Juvenile Crime Compared to Similar Counties and the Rest of Wisconsin

By Eric T. Kasper

Assistant Professor of Political Science

University of Wisconsin-Barron County

I. Introduction and Methodology

Juvenile crime in Barron County, Wisconsin is very low compared to similarly sized counties in the state. Furthermore, the juvenile crime rate in Barron County is lower than the rest of the state, and Barron County’s juvenile crime rate has decreased significantly more than the rest of the state since 2000. Based on available data presented below, I have drawn the conclusion that Barron County Restorative Justice Programs, Inc. (BCRJP) is one of the essential reasons for the low crime rate in Barron County. Indeed, BCRJP, working in conjunction with local law enforcement and schools, best explains Barron County’s low juvenile crime.

Data for this report was drawn primarily from the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance (OJA), which is the state administering agency for criminal justice statistics. This agency also develops statewide strategies, determines funding priorities, and advises the Wisconsin governor on public safety and domestic preparedness policy. Every year, OJA produces a Crime and Arrests Report, which is available at http://oja.wi.gov/category.asp?linkcatid=1324&linkid=709&locid=97. This report relied heavily on the annual OJA Crime and Arrests Reports. Additional data was obtained from personal interviews with BCRJP Executive Director Polly Wolner.

Two major comparisons are explored in this report. First, I compare the number of juvenile arrests in Barron County for selected crimes to the number of juvenile arrests in 12 other similarly sized counties in Wisconsin. These 12 counties were chosen for comparison because they had juvenile populations within a range of 20% greater to 20% less than the juvenile population of Barron County. Data for this comparison was drawn from 2005, which was the most recent data available as of this writing in November 2007. This comparison was done to demonstrate the lower number of juvenile arrests in Barron County when compared to counties in Wisconsin with the same number of juveniles.

Second, I compare selected juvenile crime rates in Barron County to juvenile crime rates in the remainder of Wisconsin. Juvenile crime rates in this report are measured by the total number of juvenile arrests in each category that are committed for every 1,000 juveniles in the jurisdiction. This process is necessary when comparing one county to the remainder of the state, as it takes into account the vast differences in juvenile population between Barron County and the rest of Wisconsin. This comparison was done in two ways. First I compared each of several crime rates in 1999 with 2005, to gauge the change in crime rates in Barron County since the introduction of BCRJP in 2000. Second, in order to better understand crime rate trends, I compared average juvenile crime rates over the period of 1995-1999 to their respective average juvenile crime rate over the period 2000-2005. These analyses reveal that juvenile crime rates have dropped significantly more in Barron County than in the rest of the state.

Finally, after making these comparisons, I draw the conclusion that BCRJP is a major factor, along with local law enforcement and schools, in influencing the downward trend of juvenile crime in Barron County.

II. Juvenile Crime in Barron County Compared to Similarly Sized Wisconsin Counties

In 2005, the juvenile population of Barron County was 11,420. In comparing counties with similarly numbers of juveniles, I selected those with juvenile populations that were within 20% of Barron County’s total. Since 20% of 11,420 is 2,284, I selected all counties with juvenile populations between 9,136 and 13,704. This yielded 12 counties in Wisconsin: Columbia, Douglas, Dunn, Grant, Marinette, Monroe, Oconto, Oneida, Pierce, Polk, Shawano, and Waupaca.[1] The average juvenile population of this group of 12 counties in 2005 was 10,963. As the following table and graph depict, the number of juvenile arrests in 2005 was much lower in Barron County when compared to the average of these other 12 counties.

Table 1: Juvenile Arrests in Barron & 12 Similar Counties (2005)

	Juvenile	Total Juvenile	Total		Total	Simple	Vand-	Disorderly	Total
	Population	Arrests	Index	Theft	Non-Index	Assault	alism	Conduct	Status
Barron Co.	11,420	417	100	75	317	9	23	86	101
12 Cty Avg	10,963	704	105	72	599	28	24	125	181

The total number of juvenile arrests in Barron County in 2005 was 417. However, the average of the 12 county control group was 704 total arrests in 2005. This calculates to 68.8% more juvenile arrests in counties similarly sized to Barron County than in Barron County. Breaking these juvenile arrest numbers down into Index, non-Index, and status offenses reveals more data implying a lower amount of juvenile crime in Barron.

The total number of juvenile Index offenses[2] were relatively equal between Barron County and the 12 county control group. In Barron County, there were 100 of these arrests, while in the 12 county control group the average was 105 in 2005. As an example, in Barron County there were 75 thefts, while the average in the 12 county control group was 72 thefts.

The biggest difference between Barron County and similarly sized counties was in the area of non-Index offenses.[3] Barron County’s total of these less serious juvenile arrests in 2005 was 317. However, the average number of juvenile non-Index arrests in the 12 county control group was 599, which correlates to an increase of 89.0% over Barron County. For some specific examples, in Barron County there were 9 simple assaults, but the average of the other 12 counties was 28 simple assaults. Likewise, while there were 86 juvenile arrests for disorderly conduct in Barron County, there was an average of 125 in the other 12 counties.

Finally, there was a major difference between Barron and similarly sized counties in the number of juvenile arrests for status offenses.[4] In 2005 Barron County recorded 101 status arrests, while the other 12 counties averaged 181 status arrests. This calculates to an increase in these counties of 79.2% over Barron County.

Overall, there is a stark contrast between Barron County and counties with similarly sized juvenile populations. Indeed, Barron County’s juvenile arrests for non-Index and status offenses are substantially lower than in comparable Wisconsin counties.

III. Trends in Barron County’s Juvenile Crime Rate Compared to the Rest of Wisconsin

The data above certainly demonstrate that juvenile crime in Barron County is considerably lower than in similar counties. However, considering that those statistics are only from 2005, they give little insight into (1) whether those numbers are from a unique year, and (2) whether there has been any trend in Barron County’s juvenile crime. In this section, I will demonstrate that juvenile crime in Barron County has been on the decline for several years, and that the juvenile crime rates in Barron County have decreased significantly more when compared to the rest of Wisconsin.

As noted above, the vast differences in juvenile populations are compensated by comparing the juvenile crime rates of Barron with the remainder of the state. The rates used below are the number of crimes committed in each category per 1,000 juveniles in the jurisdiction.[5]

First, consider the total juvenile arrest rates in the following table and graph.

Table 2: Total Juvenile Arrest Rate

(Juvenile Arrests Per 1,000 Juveniles)[6]

Year	Barron County Total	Barron County Rate	Wisconsin Rate without Barron
1995	603	53.9	101.7
1996	685	60.5	107.0
1997	851	74.6	106.0
1998	995	86.6	108.6
1999	756	66.1	99.3
2000	635	57.2	95.6
2001	849	73.5	90.5
2002	589	50.6	88.4
2003	454	38.8	84.1
2004	449	37.8	80.9
2005	417	36.5	80.1
1995-1999 Average	778	68.3	104.5
2000-2005 Average	565.5	49.1	86.6
Decrease from 95-99 to 00-05	27.3%	28.1%	17.1%
Decrease from 1999 to 2005	44.8%	44.8%	19.3%

Clearly, the juvenile arrest rate in Barron County has dropped. Furthermore, this rate has decreased at a pace faster than the other 71 counties combined in Wisconsin. The average juvenile arrest rate in Barron County from 2000-2005 was 28.1% lower than over the period of 1995-1999. In the rest of Wisconsin, the juvenile arrest rate was only 17.1% lower during 2000-2005 than it was during 1995-1999. For an even more start contrast, consider that the Barron’s juvenile arrest rate in the single year of 2005 was 44.8% less than it was in the year 1999, while in the rest of the state the juvenile arrest rate only dropped 19.3% from 1999 to 2005.

When focusing on juvenile index crime arrest rates, the drop in Barron County is again significantly lower than the remainder of the state.

Table 3: Juvenile Index Arrest Rate

(Juvenile Index Arrests Per 1,000 Juveniles)

Year	Barron County Total	Barron County Rate	Wisconsin Rate without Barron
1995	208	18.6	24.4
1996	224	19.8	23.3
1997	285	25.0	21.5
1998	335	29.2	20.2
1999	221	19.3	17.6
2000	149	13.4	16.4
2001	173	15.0	15.8
2002	173	14.9	16.0
2003	107	9.1	14.8
2004	91	7.7	14.1
2005	100	8.8	12.9
1995-1999 Average	254.6	22.4	21.4
2000-2005 Average	132.2	11.5	15.0
Decrease from 95-99 to 00-05	47.8%	48.7%	30.0%
Decrease from 1999 to 2005	54.8%	54.4%	26.7%

Barron County’s average juvenile index arrest rate went down 48.7% on average between the period 1995-1999 and the period 2000-2005. Compare this to the rest of the state, where the drop was only 30.0% from the first period to the second. Furthermore, when just considering the different between 1999 and the year 2005, Barron County’s juvenile index arrest rate decreased by 54.4%, while the rest of the state only decreased by 26.7%. Once again, this is more evidence of juvenile crime decreasing at a greater rate in Barron County than in the rest of Wisconsin. Of particular interest here is the fact that for a period in the late 1990s, the juvenile index arrest rate in Barron County was actually higher than the rest of the state, and now that rate is significantly lower.

When focusing even more specifically on juvenile theft arrest rates, the drop for Barron County is just as stark when compared to the rest of Wisconsin.

Table 4: Juvenile Theft Arrest Rate

(Juvenile Theft Arrests Per 1,000 Juveniles)

Year	Barron County Total	Barron County Rate	Wisconsin Rate without Barron
1995	144	12.9	17.0
1996	161	14.2	16.6
1997	212	18.6	15.1
1998	255	22.2	14.1
1999	177	15.5