From Prison Policy Initiative:
In the past 25 years, the number of youth confined in facilities away from home as a result of juvenile or criminal legal system involvement has dropped by over 70%, to about 31,900 at last count in 2023. In the criminal legal system context, this is an unparalleled rate of decarceration. But while the juvenile system’s shift from carceral punishment to more community-based responses to law- and rule-breaking behavior offers lessons for the broader criminal legal system, our analysis of the most recent data shows this work is far from complete.
Tens of thousands of children and adolescents are still held under lock and key each day, most in restrictive facilities that look and feel a lot like adult prisons and jails. In fact, the U.S. still confines youth at a rate that’s more than twice the global average, and well above that of all other NATO member countries. Many are detained before even having a trial or are accused of only low-level charges. By our estimation, nearly 45% of youth in confinement could likely be safely released today.
To make matters worse, some jurisdictions seem determined to drive youth confinement even higher, abandoning successful juvenile legal system reforms and returning to 1990s-style tough-on-youth-crime approaches. As politically lucrative as such moves may be, they fly in the face of what we know about youth development and intervention. They also risk repeating the same failed policies that have placed millions of kids and adults behind bars and under supervision. Considering that nearly 7 out of every 10 adults in state prison were first arrested before the age of 19, increased criminalization of youth serves as a bad omen for a wave of adult criminalization in the not-so-distant future.
Continue reading the report here.
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