Table Of ContentNO PLACE FOR KIDS
The Case for Reducing Juvenile Incarceration
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
About the Author: Richard A. Mendel is an independent founders of UPS, and his siblings, who named the
writer and researcher specializing in poverty-related Foundation in honor of their mother. The primary
issues in youth, employment, and community eco- mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies,
nomic development. He has written extensively about human-service reforms, and community supports that
youth crime prevention and juvenile justice issues, more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulner-
including five major publications for the Annie E. able children and families. In pursuit of this goal, the
Casey Foundation and three nationally disseminated Foundation makes grants that help states, cities, and
reports published by the American Youth Policy neighborhoods fashion more innovative, cost-effective
Forum. responses to these needs.
For more information and to download copies of this
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a private charitable
report, visit www.aecf.org/noplaceforkids.
organization dedicated to helping build better futures
for disadvantaged children in the United States. It ©2011, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore,
was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, one of the Maryland
Table of Contents
Introduction 2
What’s Wrong With America’s Juvenile Corrections Facilities? 5
1. Dangerous 5
2. Ineffective 9
3. Unnecessary 13
4. Obsolete 16
5. Wasteful 19
6. Inadequate 22
Is It Really Safe to Reduce Juvenile Confinement? 26
How Should States Go About Reforming Juvenile Corrections? 28
Priority 1: Limit Eligibility for Correctional Placements 28
Priority 2: Invest in Promising Non-Residential Alternatives 30
Priority 3: Change the Financial Incentives 31
Priority 4: Adopt Best Practice Reforms for Managing 32
Youth Offenders
Priority 5: Replace Large Institutions With Small, 34
Treatment-Oriented Facilities for the
Dangerous Few
Priority 6: Use Data to Hold Systems Accountable 36
Conclusion: Embracing Better Policies, Programs, and 38
Practices in Juvenile Corrections
Endnotes 40
Additional resources and state-level data for many of the report’s research find-
ings are available at www.aecf.org/noplaceforkids.
1
Introduction
For more than a century, the predominant strat- three-fifths of the total youth population, were
egy for the treatment and punishment of serious just 37 percent of the confined youth.
and sometimes not-so-serious juvenile offenders
America’s heavy reliance on juvenile incarceration
in the United States has been placement into
is unique among the world’s developed nations.
large juvenile corrections institutions, alterna-
(See Fig. 1 on p. 3.) Though juvenile violent
tively known as training schools, reformatories,
crime arrest rates are only marginally higher in
or youth corrections centers.
the United States than in many other nations,
Excluding the roughly 25,000 youth held in a recently published international comparison
detention centers daily awaiting their court trials found that America’s youth custody rate (includ-
or pending placement to a correctional program, ing youth in both detention and correctional
the latest official national count of youth in cor- custody) was 336 of every 100,000 youth in 2002
rectional custody, conducted in 2007, found that —nearly five times the rate of the next highest
roughly 60,500 U.S. youth were confined in cor- nation (69 per 100,000 in South Africa).2 A
rectional facilities or other residential programs number of nations essentially don’t incarcerate
each night on the order of a juvenile delinquency minors at all. In other words, mass incarceration
of troubled and troublemaking adolescents is nei-
ther inevitable nor necessary in a modern society.
State juvenile corrections systems in the United
States confine youth in many types of facilities,
including group homes, residential treatment
centers, boot camps, wilderness programs, or
county-run youth facilities (some of them locked,
others secured only through staff super vision).
But the largest share of committed youth—
about 40 percent of the total—are held in locked
long-term youth correctional facilities operated
primarily by state governments or by private
firms under contract to states.3 These facilities
court.1 For perspective, that’s more adolescents
are usually large, with many holding 200–300
than currently reside in mid-sized American
youth. They typically operate in a regimented
cities like Louisville, Kentucky; Nashville,
(prison-like) fashion, and feature correctional
Tennessee; Baltimore, Maryland; or Portland,
hardware such as razor-wire, isolation cells, and
Oregon. A high proportion of these confined
locked cell blocks.
youth are minority. According to the most recent
national count, two of every five confined youth Yet these institutions have never been found to
are African Americans and one-fifth are His- reduce the criminality of troubled young people.
panic; non-Hispanic white youth, who comprise Quite the opposite: For decades now, follow-up
2
FIGURE 1
YOUTH INCARCERATION RATE: UNITED STATES VS. OTHER NATIONS
350
336.0
300
JUVENILE INCARCERATION RATE
E 250 PER 100,000 YOUTH POPULATION
T
A
R
ON 200
TI
A
R
E 150
C
R
A
C
N 100
I
68.0 69.0
46.8 51.3
50
24.9 18.6 23.1 33.0
3.6 11.3 0.1 4.1
0
AUSTRALIA ENGLAND FINLAND FRANCE GERMANY ITALY JAPAN NETHERLANDS NEW SCOTLAND SOUTH SWEDEN USA
& WALES ZEALAND AFRICA
Source: Hazel, Neal, Cross-National Comparison of Youth Justice, London: Youth Justice Board, 2008.
studies tracking youth released from juvenile However, an avalanche of research has emerged
corrections facilities have routinely reported over the past three decades about what works and
high rates of recidivism. Meanwhile, reports of doesn’t work in combating juvenile crime. This
pervasive violence and abuse have been regularly report provides a detailed review of this research,
emerging from these facilities for as long as any- and it comes to the following conclusion: We
one can remember. now have overwhelming evidence showing that
wholesale incarceration of juvenile offenders is a
Nonetheless, incarceration in secure congregate-
counterproductive public policy. While a small
care youth corrections facilities has persisted
number of youthful offenders pose a serious
as the signature characteristic and the biggest
threat to the public and must be confined, incar-
budget line item of most state juvenile justice
cerating a broader swath of the juvenile offender
systems across the nation. This status quo has
population provides no benefit for public safety.
been buttressed in part by public fears of youth
It wastes vast sums of taxpayer dollars. And more
crime and by politicians’ fears of being labeled
often than not, it harms the well-being and
“soft” on crime. The aversion to change has been
dampens the future prospects of the troubled
further reinforced by the closely guarded eco-
and lawbreaking youth who get locked up. Other
nomic interests of communities that host these
approaches usually produce equal or better
facilities—and of the workers employed to staff
results—sometimes far better—at a fraction of
them. Finally, states’ continuing reliance on these
the cost.
institutions has been abetted by a lack of proven
alternatives: if not correctional confinement The idea of shuttering youth corrections facili-
for youthful offenders, what? Until the 1980s, ties and substantially shrinking the number of
juvenile crime prevention and treatment experts youth in confinement may sound radical. But the
had few answers. reality is that in large swaths of the nation—on
the east coast, west coast, and in middle America,
3
in big states and small, red states and blue—it’s legal cases concerning conditions of confine-
already happening. Often prompted by lawsuits ment in juvenile facilities. “The model has been
and revelations of abuse, or by mounting budget around for 150 years, and has proven a failure by
pressures, or by studies showing high recidivism, any measure.”6
many states have slashed their juvenile correc-
The main body of this report details six pervasive
tions populations in recent years—causing no
flaws in the states’ long-standing heavy reliance
observable increase in juvenile crime rates. The
on large, prison-like correctional institutions.
trend is continuing, though the pace of change
Specifically, the report will show that these facili-
remains uneven—in part because the isolated
ties are frequently: (1) dangerous, (2) ineffective,
changes are occurring largely under the radar, not
(3) unnecessary, (4) obsolete, (5) wasteful, and
as part of any organized movement. The winds
(6) inadequate. A subsequent chapter addresses
of change are blowing, but they have not yet
the question of public safety, finding that states
gathered gale-force intensity.
where juvenile confinement was sharply reduced
The evidence is clear that these changes must in recent years experienced more favorable
continue. The weight of expert opinion solidly trends in juvenile crime than jurisdictions which
concurs. maintained or increased their correctional facility
populations.
“We have to recognize that incarceration of
youth per se is toxic,” says Dr. Barry Krisberg, Finally, the report provides recommendations for
the longtime president of the National Council states on how to reduce juvenile incarceration
on Crime and Delinquency now on faculty at the and redesign their juvenile corrections systems.
University of California-Berkeley, “so we need to
The time has come for states to embrace a
reduce incarceration of young people to the very
fundamentally different orientation to treating
small dangerous few. And we’ve got to recog-
adolescent offenders—an approach grounded in
nize that if we lock up a lot of kids, it’s going to
evidence that promises to be far more humane,
increase crime.”4
cost-effective, and protective of public safety than
Douglas Abrams, a juvenile justice scholar at the our time-worn and counterproductive reliance
University of Missouri, concluded in 2007 that on juvenile incarceration.
“More than a century after the creation of the
nation’s first juvenile court grounded in reha-
bilitative impulses, many states still maintain
inhumane, thoroughly ineffective juvenile pris-
ons that neither rehabilitate children nor protect
public safety.”5
“The best word to describe America’s addiction
to training schools is ‘iatrogenic’—a cure that
makes problems worse,” says Paul DeMuro,
who served as commissioner of the Pennsylvania
juvenile corrections system in the late 1970s and
has since served as an expert witness in numerous
4
What’s Wrong With America’s Juvenile
Corrections Facilities?
What is so wrong with juvenile incarceration? The case against America’s youth prisons and
correctional training schools can be neatly summarized in six words: dangerous, ineffective,
unnecessary, obsolete, wasteful, and inadequate.
1. Dangerous
America’s juvenile corrections institutions subject
confined youth to intolerable levels of violence, abuse, and other forms
of maltreatment.
Since 1970, systemic violence, abuse, and/or time—one or more state-funded youth correc-
excessive use of isolation or restraints have been tions facilities displayed a systemic or recurring
documented in the juvenile corrections facili- failure to protect confined youth from serious
ties of 39 states (plus the District of Columbia physical or psychological harm in the forms
and Puerto Rico). In 32 of those states (plus of violence from staff or other youth, sexual
Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico), the abusive assaults, and/or excessive use of isolation or
conditions have been documented since 1990, restraints. In other words, states have been iden-
and in 22 states (plus Washington, DC), the tified not for one or a handful of isolated events,
maltreatment has been documented since 2000. but for a sustained pattern of maltreatment.*
(See Fig. 2 on p. 7.)
Combined over the past four decades, 57 law suits
Included in these figures are states where: (a) law- in 33 states plus the District of Columbia and
suits filed by the U.S. Justice Department and/or Puerto Rico have resulted in a court-sanctioned
public interest legal advocates have succeeded in remedy in response to alleged abuse or otherwise
producing a court-sanctioned remedy to address unconstitutional conditions in juvenile facilities.
alleged violence or abuse in juvenile facilities; Of these lawsuits, 52 have included allegations
and/or (b) authoritative reports written by of systemic problems with violence, physical or
reputable media outlets or respected public or sexual abuse by facility staff, and/or excessive use
private agencies have presented solid evidence of isolation or restraint. The remaining lawsuits
of maltreatment. In all cases, the evidence have been limited to other types of unconsti-
shows that—at least at one particular point in tutional conditions, such as failure to provide
*Even in three of the 11 states where dangerous/abusive conditions have not been demonstrated conclusively enough to
meet all of the above conditions, substantial evidence of maltreatment has been reported in at least one facility since 2000.
5
required services (education, health care, and improved education or mental health services,
mental health treatment), fire safety and other and more. And meaningful improvements have
environmental safety issues, or lack of required been achieved in many jurisdictions. However,
access to mail and to attorneys.* the map does show how frequently problem-
atic conditions have arisen in juvenile facili-
In many states, including several where there
ties throughout the nation in recent decades.
has not been successful litigation, media reports
Moreover, the fact that so many states
or investigations undertaken
have experienced these problems since
by advocacy organi zations or That so many states
2000 suggests that few lessons have
government watchdog agencies
have experienced
been learned from past outbreaks of
have also documented systemic
these problems maltreatment, or that large juvenile
abuses in youth corrections
corrections facilities are, by their very
facilities. For instance, a 1998 since 2000 suggests
nature, exceedingly difficult to oper-
series in the Arkansas Demo- that few lessons
ate in a consistently safe and humane
crat-Gazette revealed violent
have been learned fashion.
and deplorable conditions in
state youth facilities.7 In Con- from past mal More specifically, America’s youth
necticut in 2002, audit reports treatment, or that corrections institutions suffer from the
released jointly by the state’s following safety and abuse problems:
large juvenile
Child Advocate and Attorney
correc tions facili n Widespread physical abuse and exces-
General’s offices revealed exces-
sive use of force by facility staff. A March
sive use of force and restraint ties are exceedingly
2008 Associated Press story found
and other problems at the state’s
difficult to operate that 13,000 claims of abuse had been
training school,8 as well as staff-
in a consistently reported from 2004 through 2007 in
sanctioned violence and other
state-run juvenile facilities nationwide.
maltreatment in a second state- safe and humane
Of these, 1,343 instances of abuse had
funded facility.9 In North Caro-
fashion.
been officially confirmed by authori-
lina, a nine-month newspaper
ties.10 Countless more claims had
series about abuses in one youth
never been investigated properly, or never filed
facility in 2003 prompted a major investigation
by youth due to lack of functioning grievance
by the state auditor that detailed problematic and
systems and/or fear of retribution.
often abusive conditions in facilities throughout
the state. n An epidemic of sexual abuse. In 2010, the
federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released
The map on page 7 is not meant to imply that
the first-ever national study on sexual abuse in
dangerous or abusive conditions persist in the
youth corrections facilities. For the study, BJS
states identified. In most cases, revelations of
surveyed a representative sample of the 26,650
widespread maltreatment have led to court-
youth confined in large juvenile facilities nation-
ordered or state-sponsored reforms—increased
wide and found that 12 percent of them—more
staffing, new policies on isolation and restraint,
than 3,000 young people—had been victimized
*In recent years, the pace of private class-action litigation over conditions of confinement has slowed considerably. Passed in 1995,
the Prison Litigation Reform Act placed difficult new restrictions on private lawsuits over facility conditions. Then in 2003, a
federal court ruling further limited the compensation available to attorneys in class-action lawsuits—even in some cases where
conditions are found to be problematic. Absent these developments, the number of successful lawsuits would likely be higher.
6
sexually during the prior year by staff or of abused youth and the lack of a functioning
other youth in their facilities. Of these youth, grievance system.12
nearly half reported incidents involving physi-
n Rampant overreliance on isolation and restraint.
cal force or other forms of threats or coercion
While no national data are available on the use
and unwanted genital contact. The remaining
of isolation and restraints, excessive reliance on
incidents involved sexual relations between staff
these practices was alleged in 46 of the 57 suc-
(most often female staff) and confined youth. In
cessful lawsuits filed against juvenile corrections
13 of the facilities surveyed, at least 20 percent of
agencies since 1970. In Ohio, youth confined in
confined youth reported either being forced into
state correctional facilities spent 66,023 hours in
sexual acts by staff or other youth and/or sexual
seclusion in July 2009—an average of more than
relations (including genital contact) with staff.11
50 hours per resident.13 And that was one year
In Texas, 750 complaints of sexual abuse were
after an intensive review of Ohio’s youth correc-
filed by youth confined in the state correctional
tions facilities concluded that isolation “is used
facilities from 2000 to 2007—most of which
too often, for too long, and without adequate
had never been addressed due to intimidation
treatment or educational opportunities. The
FIGURE 2
SYSTEMIC OR RECURRING MALTREATMENT IN JUVENILE CORRECTIONS FACILITIES IN THE STATES: 1970 TO PRESENT
WA
MT ND
OR ID MN ME
VT
SD WI NH
WY MI NY MA
CT RI
NV NE IA PA NJ
CA UT CO IL IN OH WV MD DE
KS MO VA DC
KY
AZ OK TN NC
NM
AR SC
MS AL GA
TX
LA
FL
Puerto Rico
AK
HI Violent/abusive conditions clearly documented since 2000.
Violent/abusive conditions clearly documented after 1990 but not since 2000.
Violent/abusive conditions clearly documented after 1970 but not since 1990.
Evidence but no proof of violent/abusive conditions since 2000.
For this map, “systemic or recurring maltreatment” is identified when clear evidence has emerged from federal investigations, class-action lawsuits, or authoritative
reports written by reputable media outlets or respected public or private agencies showing that—at least at one particular time—one or more state-funded youth
corrections facilities repeatedly failed to protect youth from violence by staff or other youth, sexual assaults, and/or excessive use of isolation or restraints.
“Evidence but no proof” is indicated when credible reports of maltreatment have emerged, but not enough to satisfy the above criteria.
For more information, visit www.aecf.org/noplaceforkids.
7
extended—at times, months on end—use of Also, in many facilities staff are frequently
isolation (i.e., segregation) must be immediately subjected to taunting and other belligerent
revisited and dramatically changed.”14 A 2003 behaviors.
review in California found that on any given day,
In many states, abuse and maltreatment have
about 450 youth (10–12 percent of the popula-
reached crisis proportions in recent years.
tion) in six of the state’s large youth corrections
facilities were confined to their rooms for 23 n In Florida, the Orlando Sun Sentinel has
hours per day.15 reported that “One of the most egregious child
abusers in Florida is the very agency that’s sup-
n Unchecked youth-on-youth violence. Thirty-eight
posed to rehabilitate troubled youths: the state
of the 57 successful lawsuits filed over conditions
Department of Juvenile Justice.”20
of confinement since 1970 have alleged failure
to protect youth from harm. At the Plainfield n In New York, a governor’s task force reported
Juvenile Correctional Facility in Indiana, four in December 2009 that “there is compelling
youths suffered broken jaws in assaults by other evidence that New York’s juvenile justice system
youth in a seven-month period in 2003–04.16 At is unsafe.” The task force described the youth
corrections system as “badly broken” and declared
that “the need for systemwide reform is urgent.”21
n In Texas, investigations undertaken in the wake
of a lurid sex-abuse scandal in 2007 revealed
a breakdown in the state’s juvenile corrections
agency so pervasive that the agency was placed
into receivership.
n In Ohio, a 2008 fact-finding report completed
in connection with a class-action lawsuit against
the state’s Department of Youth Services sup-
ported all of the alleged failures: unnecessary
the Evins Regional Juvenile Center in Texas, staff force; arbitrary and excessive use of isolation
documented 1,025 youth-on-youth assaults in and seclusion; arbitrary and excessive discipline;
2005, and 568 more in the first half of 2006— inadequate mental health, medical, and dental
an average of about three assaults every day.17 care; inadequate education services; inadequate
A review of safety conditions in California youth structured programming; broadly inadequate
institutions in 2003 declared that “One might training of staff; an unsafe living environment;
easily conclude that an intense atmosphere of and a dysfunctional grievance system.22
fear permeates California’s youth corrections
n California’s youth corrections system has
facilities.”18
remained in perpetual crisis for more than a
n Frequent violence against staff. Staff working in decade. In March 2006, a team of nationally
youth facilities are also assaulted, injured, and recognized experts assembled to assist in imple-
otherwise abused with disturbing frequency. In menting court-ordered reforms observed, “This
four Arizona juvenile correctional facilities, for is a system that is broken almost everywhere you
instance, 484 assaults on staff were reported in look.” The experts listed 18 severe and systemic
2003—an average of 40 incidents per month.19 deficiencies—including “high levels of violence
8
