Fact Sheet

Each year, more than 300,000 youth are locked up in juvenile detention facilities before adjudication or trial, and more than 100,000 are held in juvenile correctional facilities after disposition or sentencing. In addition, more than 8,000 youth are held in adult jails on any given day.

A national survey of juvenile detention and corrections facilities conducted by Abt Associates and published by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention found that crowding is pervasive in these facilities: more than 75% of youth incarcerated nationwide are housed in detention and corrections facilities that violate standards relating to living space. And the situation is getting worse. In 1991, one-third of juvenile detention centers in this country, holding about one-half of the youth in detention, were crowded. By 1995, half of all public detention centers, holding three-fourths of youth in detention, were crowded.

Crowding has an impact throughout a facility, making it difficult to provide adequate medical and mental health services, education, and recreation. Crowding also raises the tension level between youth and staff, and leads to increased use of isolation and restraints.

These conditions make juvenile facilities dangerous. The Abt survey asked facility administrators to report whether certain events had occurred within the 30 days prior to the survey. It found that in that 30-day period, 2,000 youth and 650 staff had been injured in juvenile facilities nationwide. It also found that in the 30-day period, 970 youth had committed 1,400 suicidal acts. Annualized, this represents 11,000 youth committing 17,000 suicidal acts each year. In a recent report, Betraying the Young: Human Rights Violations Against Children in the U.S. Justice System, Amnesty International has chronicled abuses of young people in facilities throughout the country.

Youth held in jails and prisons are in even more danger. Young people held in adult facilities are sexually assaulted 5 times more often than youth in juvenile facilities, assaulted by staff twice as often, and assaulted with a weapon 50% more often. Youth in jails commit suicide 8 times more often than youth in juvenile detention facilities.

Sources:

Dale Parent, et al., Conditions of Confinement: Juvenile Detention and Corrections Facilities — Research Summary, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (1994).

Howard N. Snyder and Melissa Sickmund, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: A National Report, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (1995).

Melissa Sickmund, Howard N. Snyder, and Eileen Poe-Yamagata, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1997 Update on Violence, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (August 1997).

Martin Forst, Jeffrey Fagan, and T. Scott Vivona, "Youth in Prisons and Training Schools: Perceptions and Consequences of the Treatment-Custody Dichotomy," Juvenile & Family Court Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1 (l989).

Michael G. Flaherty, An Assessment of the National Incidence of Juvenile Suicide in Adult Jails, Lockups, and Juvenile Detention Centers, The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1980).

Betraying the Young: Human Rights Violations Against Children in the U.S. Justice System, Amnesty International (November 1998).