Juvenile Records and Adult Gun Violence: Evidence From Three States With Divergent Firearm Age Policies

Abstract

Young adults with a history of juvenile justice involvement are more likely than their peers to be arrested for a violent gun crime, but unlike felony convictions, juvenile adjudications are typically expunged and do not convey a federal firearm prohibition. In response, many states have enacted their own laws to delay legal firearm purchase or possession for young adults with juvenile justice histories. The specific age thresholds in these laws vary widely across states, and their relative effectiveness remains empirically untested. This study helps to fill a gap in the evidence with findings from a state-comparative longitudinal analysis of violent crime arrests, both with and without firearm involvement, among large cohorts of young adults with juvenile delinquency records in three states with divergent firearm age-of-access standards applicable to this population: North Carolina (N = 51,059; age 18), Delaware (N = 17,522; age 25), and Virginia (N = 44,432; age 29). Arrest rates for violent crime were found to be markedly higher in these cohorts than in the general population, but declined with age. Adjusted Cox proportional hazards models revealed that individuals in Virginia—the state with the most restrictive age standard—had a significantly lower risk of arrest for gun-involved violent crime than their peers in Delaware and North Carolina (HR = 0.72 and 0.70, respectively; p < .0001). Importantly, this pattern did not extend to arrests for non-firearm-related violent offenses. The findings suggest that extending minimum age requirements for firearm purchase and possession by young adults with a juvenile justice history may, at least modestly, reduce gun violence risk in this population, perhaps especially when implemented with robust background checks and enforcement efforts to prevent extralegal firearm acquisition.