Thousands of children under age ten arrested every year in the United States

Casey Gold

The recent arrests of two 6-year-old children at their elementary school in Orlando, Florida has shone light on the shocking number of child arrests and detainments in the United States. A report by ABC News on Monday noted that nearly 30,000 children under the age of 10 have been arrested just between 2013 and 2017.

The arrest and detainment of children for the crime of acting their age will continue, and indeed increase, as social inequality worsens and the ruling class marches toward authoritarian rule.

The FBI recently released its annual crime statistics for the year 2018. While the report boasts that the arrest of juveniles decreased by 11 percent from 2017, the number of arrests of individuals under 18 still stands at a staggering 718,962. This number includes 3,500 children under 10, more than 38,000 children between 10 and 12, and more than 355,000 children between the ages of 13 and 16.

These statistics only account for 28 specific offenses, and the FBI’s website where this data is available notes, “The program does not collect data regarding police contact with a juvenile who has not committed an offense, nor does it collect data on situations in which police take a juvenile into custody for his or her protection.”

It is not clear under what circumstances the police would make contact with juveniles who have not committed an offense, nor is it understandable in what situation a child should be arrested for “protection.”

Thirty-four states have no minimum age for delinquency, meaning that any child can be held criminally responsible for their actions, and 24 states have no minimum age for charging a juvenile as an adult for alleged crimes.

If it were not so sickening that tens of thousands of children have been forced to undergo the traumatic experience of arrest and detainment, the breakdown of crimes for which these children were arrested would be laughable.

For example, in 2018, there were 155 arrests of children under 10 for carrying or possessing weapons; 340 arrests were made for “disorderly conduct;” nearly twenty arrests of children under 10 were made for motor vehicle-related infractions, including driving under the influence.

For the felony charge of aggravated assault, which is defined as causing or attempting to cause bodily injury to another “purposefully, knowingly or recklessly, with an extreme indifference to the value of human life,” 145 children under 10 were arrested in 2018. The twisted irony of arresting a child for alleged “indifference to the value of human life” is further highlighted when some specific examples of these arrests are examined.