Police opened criminal cases against about 26% more teenagers in the past school year than the previous year, reversing four years of steady decline. According to data released Monday by the Knesset Research and Information Center, criminal cases were opened against 6,821 high school-age teenagers, up to age 19, in the 2024-2025 school year, compared with 5,409 the previous year.
In recent years, the number of criminal cases opened against school-age teenagers has steadily declined. The shift was also evident in the overall number of offenses attributed to teenagers in the past school year: about 21,500, up from about 17,500 the year before.
Public order offenses accounted for about 36% of the cases involving teenage suspects, followed by property crimes at 22% and violent offenses at 18%. The data released Monday, based on Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) figures, refer only to criminal cases and do not include conditional treatment cases, meaning cases in which the Youth Probation Service recommended police close the file and divert the teen to a therapeutic process. The CBS figures refer to the school year, from September 1 to the following September 1.
Recent figures from the National Council for the Child’s 2024 report, which include conditional treatment cases, show police open cases each year against about 13,000 teenagers suspected of some type of offense. Since the report does not cover 2025, it does not reflect the latest rise.
However, the report showed another troubling figure: Even as the number of cases opened against teenagers declined in recent years, there has been a steady rise in serious offenses involving loss of life, including murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide. In 2019, the number of minors suspected of such offenses was 44; by 2024, it had risen to 109. Sex offenses also increased, from 620 in 2019 to 808 in 2024.
The Knesset special committee for the rights of the child is set to discuss violence among teenagers on Monday. "As early as October 2025, we warned law enforcement agencies and authorities that we were on the brink of a severe epidemic," said committee chair MK Keti Shitrit of Likud. "Unfortunately, we are seeing the results of those fears today."