The nation’s juvenile justice systems are responsible for managing youth who violate the law. These systems rely on complex financial structures and diverse funding sources shaped by the interplay of policies at the federal, state and local level. While state and local government represent the backbone of financial support to juvenile justice systems, additional funding sources — such as federal dollars, fines and fees and philanthropic contributions — also play a role.
The diversity and complexity of this landscape makes it difficult to study how different structures support — or fail to support — a specific community’s juvenile justice goals. This lack of clarity also hinders local opportunities to strategize and allocate resources effectively, improve program quality and achieve safe communities. In pursuit of a clearer picture, the Annie E. Casey Foundation funded Child Trends to conduct a mixed-methods study of juvenile justice systems’ financing across select states and localities.
Child Trends leveraged its 13 years of experience conducting the Child Welfare Financing Survey to develop a juvenile justice financing survey. This survey — administered from January 2022 to April 2023 and covering state fiscal year 2019 — covered seven states and 11 localities. It sought to better understand how individual juvenile justice systems are run and financed, what expenditures they accrue, and where they stand with savings and reinvestment practices.
In total, five potential funding sources — defined below — were included in this survey: state, local, federal and foundation funding plus funding from fines and fees.
Understanding the diverse financing structures across jurisdictions can help policymakers and system administrators identify underutilized funding streams, inform strategies within their systems and drive meaningful change in youth justice. The resources resulting from this study seek to empower data-driven, strategic decision making on this front. These documents include:
The nation's juvenile justice landscape is far from uniform. Juvenile justice services can be administered and financed at different levels (i.e., states, localities or a combination of both) and by different government branches (e.g., judicial branch, executive branch or a joint function of both). The financial model of each system — or the framework through which funding is sourced, allocated and managed — is unique, shaped by policy priorities, administrative structures and collaborative agreements within each jurisdiction.
