NASHVILLE, Tenn. — According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, around 30% more juveniles were arrested in 2021 for minor crimes compared to the year before.
They released their 2021 Crime Report on Tuesday, detailing trends in criminality and enforcement across the state. According to the report, 130,333 arrests were made for "Group B" offenses — an increase of around 1% compared to last year. These include offenses like drunkenness, DUIs, disorderly conduct and non-violent family offenses.
Almost 5,000 of those arrestees were juveniles, according to the report. Around 8% of arrests made for more serious offenses were also juveniles.
The TBI said 502,706 "Group A" offenses were reported in 2021, a decrease of around 1% compared to 2020. Those offenses include assault, stalking, drug crimes, burglary, homicide and other serious crimes. There were 132,253 arrests made in 2021 for those kinds of offenses.
"While the difference between 2020 and 2021 data is not as pronounced as the year before, pandemic-based restrictions still seem to indicate a notable impacted on reported crime," the TBI said in the report.
Between 2019 and 2020, the TBI said reports of serious crimes dropped from around 534,100 to around 509,700 reports.
Most Group A offenses were reported in July 2021, according to the report, at around 9% of the total number reported. Most of them also tended to happen between 3 p.m. and 5:59 p.m. according to the report. Around 17% of all reported offenses happened in that timeframe.
Significantly more people were arrested for crimes related to methamphetamine as well, according to the report. In 2020, there were around 16,400 arrests involving the drug. In 2021, there were 19,726 arrests.
Women also made up a slight majority of victims, with around 179,700 making up the total number of reported victims, compared to around 158,700 men. Women also made up the majority of domestic violence victims.
According to the report, the most common kind of domestic violence offenses were assaults between boyfriends and girlfriends. Assaults between spouses made up the next most common offense, with less than half the number of incidents between boyfriends and girlfriends.
There were also around 4,300 incidents reported of parents assaulting their children in Tennessee, outnumbering the number of other offenses between other members of a household.
The Knox County Sheriff's Office reported 10,519 offenses brought to their attention. They said 5,882 of them were cleared and a total of 7,122 people were arrested. There were 418 juvenile arrests by the Knox County Sheriff's Office, according to the report. The most common kinds of offenses in Knox County involved assaults and drugs, according to the report.
The Knoxville Police Department also said that 19,797 offenses were brought to their attention in 2021. They said they cleared 8,786 of them. The most common kinds of crimes reported in their area also involved assaults and drugs.