<Li> Statutory Exclusion: State laws that require certain categories of juvenile offenders to appear in criminal court based on age or type of offense </Li> <Li> "Once an adult, always an adult" or "Once waived / always waived": State laws that require juveniles to be tried in criminal court if any previous crimes were seen in criminal court </Li> <P> Twenty - three states have no minimum age in at least one judicial waiver or statutory exclusion provision allowing for the transfer of juveniles to adult court . In states where a minimum age is specified for all transfer provisions, age 14 is the most common minimum age . </P> <P> In 2003, 2.2 million arrests were made involving individuals under 18, with the most serious offenses most frequently involving larceny - theft, drug abuse violations, and disorderly conduct . According to 1998 statistics from the Bureau of Justice, which looked at 7,100 transferred juveniles charged with felonies within 40 of the nation's largest urban counties, violent felony offenses made up 63.5% of the charges made against juvenile defendants in criminal court . Other offenses included property offenses (17.7%), drug offenses (15.1%) and public - disorder offenses (3.5%). Of this sample of juveniles, 23% were transferred to criminal court by judicial waiver, 34% by prosecutorial discretion, and 41.6% by statutory exclusion . Within this sample of juveniles, 96% percent were male . A majority of the juvenile defendants were African American (62%). The rest of the sample was made up of Caucasian (20%), Latino (16%) and other (2%). At time of arrest almost 40% of the juveniles were age 17, with 30.7% ages 16--17, 19.2% ages 15--16, 6.8% ages 14--15, and 0.3% less than 14 years of age . </P>

Can 17 year olds be tried as adults