Almost a quarter-million American children were incarcerated in 2019, according to a new report called "Too Many Closed Doors" from the Sentencing Project, about five times more than the annual point-in-time counts reveal.
Josh Rovner, a senior advocacy associate for The Sentencing Project and the report's author, said we have been looking at the wrong numbers.
"As of one day in 2019, there were about 36,000 kids in youth facilities, and the actual number of kids in the facilities over the course of the year was closer to 240,000," Rovner explained. "And that is actually an undercount."
The report found juveniles are overwhelmingly being detained for low-level offenses. In addition, the disruption to their schooling and home life makes them more likely to be rearrested in the future.
In addition, the detention rates are much higher in poverty-stricken communities of color, where there is more police presence.
Rovner pointed out it leads to significant racial disparities.
"Overall, 1 out of every four kids who are sent to court are detained at the outset," Rovner outlined. "Now, for white youths, that is 1 out of every 5. For Black and Latino youths, closer to 30%. And that is not connected to the seriousness of the offense."
Daniel Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, said youth crime had dropped dramatically in the past 30 years. California once detained about 10,000 youths; now, it's down to about 3,000. He noted the state overbuilt juvenile detention centers in the '90s and now have 12,000 beds and thinks it creates an incentive to use them.
"I think it's partly just a matter of bureaucratic convenience," Macallair asserted. "And the concern over, well, we built these detention beds, and if we don't keep them filled, what implications will that have for the department's budget, employment, the unions get upset, and so there's a whole lot of factors that are weighing in here."
California will close the last of its state youth detention facilities by next summer. Instead, juvenile justice will be handled entirely at the county level, so detained kids can be closer to family and be connected with local programs to help them rebuild their lives.
References:
Juvenile justice report The Sentencing Project 03/15/2022
By Suzanne Potter/PNS
Share this page with your family and friends.