We know little about the rates of offending among juveniles and how their rates compare to
those of adult offenders. A study based on a school survey estimated the median burglary
frequency rate of juveniles to be between 1 and 2 a year (Baker, 1998). Salmelainen (1995)
estimated that juvenile theft offenders in detention commit burglary offences at a rate of 0.39
a week. Stevenson and Forsythe (1998) report median monthly frequency offending rates of
8.7 and 12.7 burglaries among adult and juvenile burglars serving prison terms. Using these
results, a rough calculation shows that among juvenile burglars, those under detention offend
at a frequency that is 106 times higher than school kids, who presumably are undetectable by
the criminal justice system. Making the simplistic assumption that a similar ratio holds
between frequency of offending of imprisoned adult burglars and those in the community, the
latter would offend at a rate of 0.02 a week. From these results, the number of burglaries
committed by juveniles can be grossly estimated at 40 per cent of all the burglaries occurring