Among the most important principles in dealing with juvenile perpetrators of criminal offenses, in accordance with the International Minimum Standard Rules of Procedure, there is the urgency principle and purposefulness principle. The Republic of Croatia, through its legislation, achieves these principles and certain changes to the Law on Juvenile Courts should ensure shortening of proceedings against juvenile perpetrators of criminal offenses, apropos the application of alternative measures instead of formal criminal proceedings. This paper provides an analysis and review of the duration of criminal proceedings against juvenile perpetrators of criminal offenses and application of the purposefulness principle in Croatia in the period from 2009 to 2016. The aim of the work was to determine the length of the procedure from the application until the decision on the registered and the accused minors of the decision and the verdict issued to juvenile offenders. The research was conducted by quantitative methodology, using the descriptive method. The analysis was conducted on the basis of official data of the Central Bureau of Statistics for the total crime of juveniles in Croatia, as well as for certain categories of criminal offenses. The obtained results show that the duration of the criminal proceedings against juvenile perpetrators of criminal offenses is in a gradual decline and in the majority of reported juveniles the proceedings last from six months to one year. On the other hand, the majority of juvenile perpetrators are charged only after one year and more, even 80% of juvenile perpetrators, but this trend decreases after 2014, as well as with reported juveniles whose duration is after 2013 decreases from one year to more for six months to one year. Given the type of decision made to juvenile perpetrators, it is evident that throughout all the observed period most of the proceedings have not been initiated, which means that the minor offender's perpetrator's decision was attributed to an alternative measure, apropos it was found that the criminal proceedings were unnecessary