Nation Shifts Away From Costly, Unnecessary Confinement

Since 2007, the rate at which youth are placed in juve­nile deten­tion, cor­rec­tion­al and res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties has steadi­ly declined — falling 44% nation­wide. Dur­ing this same time frame, juve­nile deten­tion rates have dropped in every state as well as the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, and the total num­ber of youth resid­ing in deten­tion has also declined.

On a giv­en day in 2015, 48,000 youth under the age of 21 were detained, incar­cer­at­ed or liv­ing in res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties. This pop­u­la­tion count has fall­en by 6,105 since 2013 and 57,012 in less than two decades.

Juve­nile con­fine­ment rates and pop­u­la­tions totals have also dropped across all racial and eth­nic groups, though sig­nif­i­cant dis­par­i­ties between these groups exist. For instance: Com­pared to their white peers, African-Amer­i­can youth are five times more like­ly to be detained. This risk is also three times high­er for Amer­i­can Indi­an youth.

Juve­nile lock up is expen­sive, inef­fec­tive and — in many cas­es — unnec­es­sary. Com­mu­ni­ty- and home-based alter­na­tives for juve­niles can yield equal or bet­ter out­comes at a frac­tion of the cost, all while main­tain­ing pub­lic safe­ty, accord­ing to research.

Access juve­nile jus­tice data on the KIDS COUNT Data Center:

• Youth resid­ing in juve­nile deten­tion, cor­rec­tion­al and res­i­den­tial facilities
• Youth resid­ing in juve­nile deten­tion, cor­rec­tion­al and res­i­den­tial facil­i­ties by race and His­pan­ic origin