Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2019

Prison Policy Initiative updates for December 19, 2019 Showing how mass incarceration harms communities and our national welfare

New report, Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2019, breaks down where children and teenagers are locked up, where, and why [[link removed]]

Why are 48,000 children and teenagers locked up in the United States, and where exactly are they? How are the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system similar, and how are they different? In our new infographic and report, [[link removed]] we answer these unexpectedly difficult questions about youth confinement.

Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2019 [[link removed]] reveals failures in the juvenile justice system that mirror failures in the adult system, including:

Unnecessary pretrial detention. On any given day, 9,500 youth – or 1 in 5 youth in confinement – are locked up before trial. Incarceration for the most minor offenses. 19% of youth in juvenile facilities are locked up for “technical violations” of probation or parole, or for status offenses (behaviors for which an adult would not be prosecuted). Glaring racial disparities. While only 14% of children under 18 in the U.S. are Black, 42% of boys and 35% of girls in juvenile facilities are Black.

But the number of youth in confinement is also falling dramatically. “At a time when cutting the adult prison population by 50% strikes many people as radical, states have already cut the number of confined youth by 60% since 2000, and that trend is continuing,” said report author Wendy Sawyer. The report describes state reforms that have helped shrink the juvenile justice system, such as:

Reducing incarceration for certain offenses, including status offenses, technical violations, and misdemeanors Closing large detention facilities and developing new community-based supervision and treatment programs Limiting the amount of time youth may be incarcerated or under court supervision

“States have reduced youth incarceration without seeing an increase in crime, which is very encouraging, but there are still far too many youth in confinement,” said Sawyer, “Today, there are 13,500 youth locked up away from home for drug possession and low-level offenses, not to mention 7,000 other youth detained before trial. That means this country still has a lot of work to do.”

For the full report and more infographics, see [link removed]. [[link removed]]

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Other news: Why LGBTQ youth face a higher risk of incarceration [[link removed]]

Homelessness is the greatest predictor of a young person's involvement with the juvenile justice system. We connect the dots to show that since LGBTQ youth comprise 40% of the homeless youth population, they are at an increased risk of incarceration.

Read our January data analysis. [[link removed]]

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Our work is made possible by private donations. Can you help us keep going? We can accept tax-deductible gifts online [[link removed]] or via paper checks sent to PO Box 127 Northampton MA 01061. Thank you!

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Prison Policy Initiative

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