The United States incarcerates more of its youth than any other country in the world, through the juvenile courts and the adult criminal justice system, which reflects the larger trends in incarceration practices in the United States. In 2010, approximately 70,800 juveniles were incarcerated in youth detention facilities alone., data from As of 2006, approximately 500,000 youth were brought to detention centers in a given year. This data does not reflect juveniles tried as adults. As of 2013, around 40% were incarcerated in privatized, for-profit facilities.Chris Kirkham (22 October 2013). Prisoners of Profit: Private Prison Empire Rises Despite Startling Record Of Juvenile Abuse. The Huffington Post. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act
+ Juvenile detention in the USSickmund, M., Sladky, T.J., Kang, W., & Puzzanchera, C.. "Easy Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement". Click "National Crosstabs" at the top, and then choose the census years. Click "Show table" to get the total number of juvenile inmates for those years. Or go here for all the years. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Year Male Female Total 1997 90,771 14,284 105,055 1999 92,985 14,508 107,493 2001 89,115 15,104 104,219 2003 81,975 14,556 96,531 2006 78,998 13,723 92,721 2007 75,017 11,797 86,814 2010 61,359 9,434 70,793 2011 53,079 8,344 61,423 2013 46,421 7,727 54,148 2015 40,750 7,293 48,043 2017 36,982 6,598 43,580 2019 31,064 5,415 36,479 2021 21,340 3,554 24,894
The system that is currently operational in the United States was created under the 1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act called for a "deinstitutionalization" of juvenile delinquents. The act required that states holding youth within adult prisons for status offenses remove them within a span of two years (this timeframe was adjusted over time). The act also provided program grants to states, based on their youth populations, and created the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
Through reauthorization amendments, additional programs have been added to the original Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The following list highlights a few of these additions:
1975 – Programs were developed to assist children with learning disabilities who entered the juvenile justice system.
1984 – A new missing and exploited children program was added.
1984 – Strong support was given to programs that strengthened families.
1988 – Studies on prison conditions within the Indian justice system.
1990 – The OJJDP began funding child abuse training programs to instruct judicial personnel and prosecutors.
1983 – A juvenile boot camp program was designed to introduce delinquent youth to a lifestyle of structure and discipline.
1992 – A community prevention grants program gave start-up money to communities for local juvenile crime prevention plans.
Types of incarceration
Some inmates of the juvenile system are or were "status offenders", children who committed acts that are not crimes for adults, but can get juveniles in trouble with the law. Status offenses include consensual sexual acts, truancy from school, smoking cigarettes, curfew violations, drinking alcohol, running away from one's residence, chronic disobedience of parents, guardians, and/or other authority figures, waywardness, and ungovernability.Williams, Vergil L. Dictionary of American Penology. Second Edition. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. 213. Retrieved from Google Books on August 23, 2010. , .
Trends as of 2000 From 1992 through 1997, forty-four states and the District of Columbia passed laws making it easier for juveniles to be tried as adults, calling attention to the growing trend away from the original model for treatment of juveniles in the justice system. A study from 2000 of pretrial services for youth tried as adults in 18 of the country's largest jurisdictions found that the decision to try young offenders as adults was made more often by legislators and prosecutors (at a rate of 85%) than by judges, the people originally endowed with the responsibility for such discretion.
The decreasing distinction between how youth and adults are tried in the criminal justice system has caused many within the legal system, as well as other activists and organizers, to criticize the juvenile justice system.
The "tough on crime" attitudes of these legislative events reflect the stance's popularity in public opinion. This is true of the majority of criminal justice reform policies in the 1990s and 2000s, including California's infamous Three Strikes Law.
Reforms in criminal justice reforms, and juvenile justice in particular, are often fought in the court of public opinion. The popular news media plays a crucial role in promoting the myth of a new generation of young "super-predators" threatening the public. Despite documented decreases in youth crime, particularly in violent crime which indicate a 68% decline in youth homicide in the 1990s, overall media coverage of youth crime is increasing. Despite evidence to the contrary, 62% of respondents in a 1999 survey on youth delinquency believed that youth crime increased. Advocates for juvenile justice reform focus considerable attention on amending public opinion and adjusting the gap between the threats people perceive and the reality of juvenile crime.
Profiles of youth in custody
A 2010 report by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and U.S. Department of Justice, "Survey of Youth in Residential Placement: Youth's Needs and Services", used data from more than 7,000 youth in custody gathered during interviews. The report's findings include: 70% of youth in custody reported that they had "had something very bad or terrifying" happen to them in their lives. 67% reported having seen someone severely injured or killed; 26% of those surveyed said felt as if "life was not worth living", and 22% reported having tried to commit suicide at some point in their lives; 84% of the youth surveyed said they had used marijuana, compared to a rate of 30% among their peers in the general population; 30% reported having used crack or cocaine, compared with only 6% in the general population. The report noted a significant gap between the profiles of boys and girls, with girls often reporting more pronounced difficulties: 63% of girls reported having problems with anger, whereas 47% of boys did; 49% of girls reported having hallucinatory experiences, whereas only 16% of boys did; 37% of girls reported having suicidal thoughts and feelings, whereas only 18% of boys did. Facilities that treat such youth also were shown to be inadequate in some core areas, according to the Justice Department. Among youth who reported four or more recent substance-related problems, only about 60% said they had been provided with substance abuse counseling in their current facility. Many youths in custody reported having attention problems and difficulties in school. Once in custody, only 45% report spending 6 hours a day or more in school, meaning that their learning time is below that of the general population.
Criticism of juvenile justice
Critics of the juvenile justice system, like those in the wider prison abolition movement, identify three main markers of the system for critique and reform. They hold that the juvenile justice system is unjust, ineffective, and counter-productive in terms of fulfilling the promise of the prison system, namely the protection of the public from violent offenders.
Criticisms of racism Critics of the juvenile justice system believe that the system is unfairly stacked against minority youth. Minority youth are disproportionately represented in incarcerated populations relative to their representation in the general population. A recent report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency found that minority youth are treated more severely than white youth at every point of contact with the system—from arrest, to detention, to adjudication, to incarceration—even when charged with the same crime. In 1995, African American youths made up 12% of the population, but were arrested at rates double those for Caucasian youths. The trend towards adult adjudication has had implications for the racial make-up of the juvenile prison population as well. Minority youth tried in adult courts are much more likely to be sentenced to serve prison time than white youth offenders arrested for similar crimes.
Criticisms based on adverse effects Juvenile detention facilities are often overcrowded and understaffed. The most infamous example of this trend is Cheltenham center in Maryland, which at one point crowded 100 boys into cottages sanctioned for a maximum capacity of 24, with only 3–4 adults supervising. Young people in these environments are subject to brutal violence from their peers as well as staff, who are often overworked, underpaid and under stress. The violence that incarcerated youth experience—fights, stabbings, rapes—is well known to those who work in the criminal justice system, and those who oppose it.
Congregating delinquent youth has a negative impact on behavior—it actually serves to make them more deviant and more of a threat to themselves and others. Social scientists call the phenomenon "peer delinquency training", and have found significantly higher levels of substance abuse, school difficulties, delinquency, violence, and adjustment difficulties in adulthood for offenders detained in congregated settings versus those that were offered treatment in another setting.Dishion, T.J., McCord, J & Poulin F. (1999), "When interventions Harm: Peer groups and Problem Behavior." American Psychologist Vol. 54, No. 9 p. 755-764.
Incarceration can aggravate mental illness. According to detention center administrators who testified to United States Congress in a 2004 Special Investigation by the House of Representatives, many incarcerated youths could have avoided incarceration had they received mental health treatment. Prepared for Sen. Susan Collins, and Rep. Henry A. Waxman. Detention centers do not promote normal cognitive and emotional development. A recent report indicated that for up to one-third of incarcerated youth suffering from depression, the onset of depression occurred after their transfer to a detention center.Kashani, J.H., Manning, G.W., McKnew, D.H., Cytryn, L., Simonds, J.F., and Wooderson, P.C. (1980) "Depression Among Incarcerated Delinquents", Psychiatry Research Vol. 3 p. 185-191. These youth face a greater risk of self-injury and suicide. Researchers have found that incarcerated youth engage in self-injurious behaviors at a rate two to four times higher than the general youth population.Parent, D.G., Leiter, V., Kennedy, S., Livens, L., Wentworth, D. & Wilcox, S. (1994) Conditions of Confinement: Juvenile Detention and Corrections Facilities. Washington, DC: U.S. department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Furthermore, prison administrative policy often intensifies the risk by responding to suicidal threats in ways that endanger the detainees, such as putting them in solitary confinement.Hayes, L.M. (1999) Suicide Prevention in Juvenile Correctional Facilities Washington DC: Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.