Annual crime statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows that between 2013 and 2017 at least 26,966 children under the age of 10 were arrested in the United States. That number skyrockets for children between the ages of 10 to 12, to 228,017 arrested during the same five-year time span. The minimum age for delinquency is not federally mandated. Thirty-four states have no minimum age for delinquency, according to the most recent data from the Department of Justice, and a majority of the remaining states set the age at 10-years-old. Arrests of children 12 and under represents a tiny fraction of the total annual arrests—more than 8.2 million in 2017 alone in the U.S.—but experts say it is still too many. The stunning statistics are particularly troubling after the news that a 6-year-old girl was arrested for throwing a tantrum at school in Orlando, Florida, last week.
