Youth incarceration in the United States
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The United States incarcerates more of its
youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Yo ...
than any other country in the world through the juvenile courts and the adult
criminal justice system Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
, which reflects the larger trends in incarceration practices in the United States. In 2010, approximately 70,800 juveniles were incarcerated in youth detention facilities alone. As of 2006, approximately 500,000 youth were brought to detention centers in a given year. This data does not reflect juveniles tried as adults. As of 2013, around 40% were incarcerated in privatized, for-profit facilities.


The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act

The system that is currently operational in the United States was created under the 1974
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 (JJDPA) is a United States federal law providing formula grants to states that follow a series of federal protections on the care and treatment of youth in the juvenile justice and crimi ...
. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act called for a "deinstitutionalization" of
juvenile delinquents Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person ...
. The act required that states holding youth within adult prisons for status offenses remove them within a span of two years (this timeframe was adjusted over time). The act also provided program grants to states, based on their youth populations, and created the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is an office of the United States Department of Justice and a component of the Office of Justice Programs. The OJJDP publishes the JRFC Databook on even numbered years for informat ...
(OJJDP). Through reauthorization amendments, additional programs have been added to the original Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The following list highlights a few of these additions: 1975 – Programs were developed to assist children with
learning disabilities Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty (British English) is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficult ...
who entered the juvenile justice system. 1984 – A new missing and exploited children program was added. 1984 – Strong support was given to programs that strengthened families. 1988 – Studies on prison conditions within the Indian justice system. 1990 – The OJJDP began funding child abuse training programs to instruct judicial personnel and
prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
s. 1983 – A juvenile boot camp program was designed to introduce delinquent youth to a lifestyle of structure and discipline. 1992 – A community prevention grants program gave start-up money to communities for local juvenile crime prevention plans.


Types of incarceration

Some inmates of the juvenile system are or were "status offenders", children who committed acts that are not crimes for adults, but can get juveniles in trouble with the law.
Status offense A status offense is an action that is prohibited only to a certain class of people, and most often applied only to offenses committed by minors. In the United States, the term status offense also refers to an offense such as a traffic violati ...
s include consensual sexual acts, truancy from school, smoking cigarettes, curfew violations,
drinking alcohol Alcohol, sometimes referred to by the chemical name ''ethanol'', is a depressant drug that is the active ingredient in drinks such as beer, wine, and distilled spirits (hard liquor). It is one of the oldest and most commonly consumed recreat ...
, running away from one's residence, chronic disobedience of parents, guardians, and/or other authority figures, waywardness, and ungovernability.


Trends as of 2000

From 1992 through 1997, forty-four states and the District of Columbia passed laws making it easier for juveniles to be tried as adults, calling attention to the growing trend away from the original model for treatment of juveniles in the justice system. A study from 2000 of pretrial services for youth tried as adults in 18 of the country's largest jurisdictions found that the decision to try young offenders as adults was made more often by
legislator A legislator (also known as a deputy or lawmaker) is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are often elected by the people of the state. Legislatures may be supra-national (for ex ...
s and prosecutors (at a rate of 85%) than by judges, the people originally endowed with the responsibility for such discretion. The decreasing distinction between how youth and adults are tried in the criminal justice system has caused many within the legal system, as well as other activists and organizers, to criticize the juvenile justice system. The " tough on crime" attitudes of these legislative events reflect the stance's popularity in
public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...
. This is true of the majority of criminal justice reform policies in the 1990s and 2000s, including
California's California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
infamous
Three Strikes Law In the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who ...
. Reforms in criminal justice reforms, and juvenile justice in particular, are often fought in the court of public opinion. The popular news media plays a crucial role in promoting the myth of a new generation of young "super-predators" threatening the public. Despite documented decreases in youth crime, particularly in violent crime which indicate a 68% decline in youth
homicide Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...
in the 1990s, overall media coverage of youth crime is increasing. Despite evidence to the contrary, 62% of respondents in a 1999 survey on youth delinquency believed that youth crime increased. Advocates for juvenile justice reform focus considerable attention on amending public opinion and adjusting the gap between the threats people perceive and the reality of juvenile crime.


Profiles of youth in custody

A 2010 report by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and U.S. Department of Justice, "Survey of Youth in Residential Placement: Youth's Needs and Services", used data from more than 7,000 youth in custody gathered during interviews. The report's findings include: 70% of youth in custody reported that they had "had something very bad or terrifying" happen to them in their lives. 67% reported having seen someone severely injured or killed; 26% of those surveyed said felt as if "life was not worth living", and 22% reported having tried to commit suicide at some point in their lives; 84% of the youth surveyed said they had used marijuana, compared to a rate of 30% among their peers in the general population; 30% reported having used crack or cocaine, compared with only 6% in the general population. The report noted a significant gap between the profiles of boys and girls, with girls often reporting more pronounced difficulties: 63% of girls reported having problems with anger, whereas 47% of boys did; 49% of girls reported having hallucinatory experiences, whereas only 16% of boys did; 37% of girls reported having suicidal thoughts and feelings, whereas only 18% of boys did. Facilities that treat such youth also were shown to be inadequate in some core areas, according to the Justice Department. Among youth who reported four or more recent substance-related problems, only about 60% said they had been provided with substance abuse counseling in their current facility. Many youths in custody reported having attention problems and difficulties in school. Once in custody, only 45% report spending 6 hours a day or more in school, meaning that their learning time is below that of the general population.


Criticism of juvenile justice

Critics of the juvenile justice system, like those in the wider
prison abolition movement The prison abolition movement is a network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation that do not place a focus on punishment and government institutiona ...
, identify three main markers of the system for critique and reform. They hold that the juvenile justice system is unjust, ineffective, and counter-productive in terms of fulfilling the promise of the prison system, namely the protection of the public from violent offenders.


Criticisms of racism

Critics of the juvenile justice system believe that the system is unfairly stacked against minority youth. Minority youth are disproportionately represented in incarcerated populations relative to their representation in the general population. A recent report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency found that minority youth are treated more severely than white youth at every point of contact with the system—from arrest, to detention, to
adjudication Adjudication is the legal process by which an arbiter or judge reviews evidence and argumentation, including legal reasoning set forth by opposing parties or litigants, to come to a decision which determines rights and obligations between the p ...
, to incarceration—even when charged with the same crime. In 1995,
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
youths made up 12% of the population, but were arrested at rates double those for
Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Anthropology *Anything from the Caucasus region ** ** ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region * * * Languages * Northwest Caucasian l ...
youths. The trend towards adult adjudication has had implications for the racial make-up of the juvenile prison population as well. Minority youth tried in adult courts are much more likely to be sentenced to serve prison time than white youth offenders arrested for similar crimes.


Criticisms based on adverse effects

Juvenile detention facilities are often overcrowded and understaffed. The most infamous example of this trend is Cheltenham center in
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, which at one point crowded 100 boys into cottages sanctioned for a maximum capacity of 24, with only 3–4 adults supervising. Young people in these environments are subject to brutal violence from their peers as well as staff, who are often overworked, underpaid and under stress. The violence that incarcerated youth experience—fights, stabbings,
rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
s—is well known to those who work in the criminal justice system, and those who oppose it. Congregating delinquent youth has a negative impact on behavior—it actually serves to make them more deviant and more of a threat to themselves and others.
Social scientists Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...
call the phenomenon "peer delinquency training", and have found significantly higher levels of substance abuse, school difficulties, delinquency, violence, and adjustment difficulties in adulthood for offenders detained in congregated settings versus those that were offered treatment in another setting. Incarceration can aggravate
mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
. According to detention center administrators who testified to
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
in a 2004 Special Investigation by the
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
, many incarcerated youths could have avoided incarceration had they received mental health treatment. Detention centers do not promote normal cognitive and
emotional development Social emotional development represents a specific domain of child development. It is a gradual, integrative process through which children acquire the capacity to understand, experience, express, and manage emotions and to develop meaningful relat ...
. A recent report indicated that for up to one-third of incarcerated youth suffering from depression, the onset of depression occurred after their transfer to a detention center. These youth face a greater risk of
self-injury Self-harm is intentional behavior that is considered harmful to oneself. This is most commonly regarded as direct injury of one's own skin tissues usually without a suicidal intention. Other terms such as cutting, self-injury and self-mutilatio ...
and suicide. Researchers have found that incarcerated youth engage in self-injurious behaviors at a rate two to four times higher than the general youth population. Furthermore, prison administrative policy often intensifies the risk by responding to suicidal threats in ways that endanger the detainees, such as putting them in
solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use additi ...
. Detained youth with
special needs In clinical diagnostic and functional development, special needs (or additional needs) refers to individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological. Guidelines for clinical diagnosis are given in b ...
often fail to return to school upon release. Among those young students receiving
remedial education Remedial education (also known as developmental education, basic skills education, compensatory education, preparatory education, and academic upgrading) is assigned to assist students in order to achieve expected competencies in core academic ski ...
during their detention, roughly 43% do not return to school. Among those that do re-enroll, between two-thirds to three-quarters drop out within a year. Not only does this pose a serious threat to the ex-offender's well-being—high school drop-outs face high unemployment, poor health, shorter life spans, and low income—it also poses a threat to public safety. According to the
United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Departmen ...
, high school drop-outs are 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than High School Graduates. Formerly incarcerated youth face less success in the labor market. On average youth that have spent any amount of time in a youth detention facility work 3–5 weeks less than the average employee over the course of a year. Their interrupted education makes them less competitive, and their experience of incarceration may change them into less stable employees. This lack of success in the workplace is a threat to personal well-being as well as to communities whose youth are incarcerated in large numbers, such as
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s.


Criticisms based on effectiveness

Studies indicate that incarcerating young offenders is not the most effective way of curbing delinquency and reducing crime. The relationship between detention of young offenders and the rate of overall youth criminality is not evident. A study of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
's arrest data for the 1990s reveals that the rise in detention was unrelated to crime rates. That is, detention as a tactic of controlling young offenders has little to nothing to do with the rate of crime or the "threat" that youth pose to the public. While there may be an individual need to incarcerate violent or high-risk youth, most of the young people in prisons, jails and detention centers today—up to 70%—are serving time for nonviolent offenses. Not all delinquent youth are incarcerated—in fact, as many as one-third of all Americans might engage in delinquent behavior at some point in their youth. But those that are detained or imprisoned are less likely to grow out of their delinquency than those that are not.
Criminologists Criminology (from Latin , "accusation", and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'' meaning: "word, reason") is the study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in both the behavioural and so ...
recognize a natural process of desistance called "aging out" of delinquency, through which a person desists their delinquent behavior through maturation and experience. Detaining or incarcerating youth can interrupt or slow down the aging out process, resulting in a longer period of delinquency. The harm done to the emotional, mental and social development of incarcerated youth, combined with the separation from family and community and the congregation of offenders makes previous incarceration the leading indicator for a repeat offense among young offenders. It is a greater predictor even than weapon possession, gang membership and bad relationships with parents. What these studies tell us is that, far from increasing the public safety and curbing youth crime, detaining and incarcerating young offenders is actually leading to more criminality among youth, and more serious crimes. As the country grapples with the impact of a growing recession, a cost-benefit analysis of our criminal justice system is especially germane. The cost effectiveness of detention and incarceration scores very low compared with alternative approaches to youth delinquency in a cost-benefit analysis. A 2002 government commissioned study in
Washington state Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
revealed that for every one dollar spent on juvenile detention systems, a benefit return of $1.98 in terms of reduced crime and cost of crime to taxpayers was achieved. They found benefit returns ranging from $3.36- $13 for a series of detention alternatives. This study indicates that alternative models are more effective in reducing youth offending in practical and economic terms.


The movement to end youth incarceration

The movement to reduce and end youth incarceration is a widespread collection of thousands of activists, lawyers, community organizers, educators, artists, and youth working on specific legislative and localized initiatives. Movement goals include shutting down particularly bad prisons and detention centers, demanding better treatment for youth in the system, providing and demanding better representation for young people in court, affecting legislation to curb youth incarceration, working to abolish
arrest warrants An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual, or the search and seizure of an individual's property. Canada Arrest warrants are issued by a ...
for young people, and promoting alternatives to incarceration. There are national organizations and local ones, opposition from inside the criminal justice system and from outside of it. The movement is diverse in many ways, and is difficult to encapsulate in a single entry. Listed below are some examples of movement struggles:


The Maryland campaign to Close Cheltenham

The Cheltenham Juvenile Detention Center in
Cheltenham, Maryland Cheltenham is an unincorporated community in Prince George's County, in southern Maryland, United States, adjacent to U.S. Highway 301. It is named after Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. ThCheltenham Youth Detention Center a juvenile correc ...
was one of the nation's most infamous prisons for boys. Started in 1872 as the House of Reformation for Colored Boys, Cheltenham was home to a wildly overrepresented population of minority youth. But the
racial injustice Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It posses and creates gender c ...
inside the notorious prison was not what ultimately led to its demise. The conditions at Cheltenham were deplorable. Overcrowded and understaffed, Cheltenham was also flagged by fire safety inspectors as one of the least safe buildings in the state. The antiquated prison structure—each cell had to be individually unlocked, and at times prison staff could not present keys to some cells—was also the site of an enormous amount of brutality and violence. Local citizens in the Maryland Juvenile Justice Coalition developed the Maryland Campaign to Close Cheltenham in 2001. The campaign involved parents of incarcerated youth, youth activists, and faith leaders from across the state. Through a targeted media campaign to shift public opinion, the campaign succeeded in passing
legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...
through the annual budget to phase out and close Cheltenham, and to increase state spending on community-based alternative programs for youth offenders.


Taking on Tallulah

The Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth in
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
had been open for only three years when it was first sued by the
United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...
(in collaboration with local activists in the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana) for violating the
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...
of youth held in its confines—marking the first time in U.S. history that the federal government has actively sued a state over the conditions of its juvenile detention facilities. That same year the filthy conditions, brutal violence and chronic understaffing earned the center a citation as "the worst in the nation." In 1999, even after the federal government had taken over partial responsibility for improving conditions, things were so unsafe for the youth that the staff of the center walked out, leaving 400 boys completely unsupervised. Youth and adult activists appealed to the state legislature to shut down the prison once and for all. But their aspirations didn't stop with the abolition of one prison—they sought to redefine the juvenile justice system in the state, to change it from one based almost entirely on incarceration and punishment to a new system focusing on community-based alternatives to incarceration. In 2003 the state of
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
became nationally recognized for its leadership in reforming a broken juvenile justice system. With the passage of the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 (Act 1225), then Governor
Kathleen Blanco Kathleen Marie Blanco (née Babineaux; December 15, 1942 – August 18, 2019) was an American politician who served as the 54th Governor of Louisiana from January 2004 to January 2008. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first and, ...
and the
Louisiana State Legislature The Louisiana State Legislature (french: Législature d'État de Louisiane) is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is a bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 repres ...
ushered in a period of reform in which the notoriously brutal Tallulah prison for youth was shut down, conditions were improved in other abusive youth prisons throughout the state, and a commitment was made to both the increased use of alternatives to incarceration for youth and to revamping secure care prisons to be small,
therapeutic A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different ...
facilities that were regionalized to keep children closer to their families. Before the passage of Act 1225, over two thousand children were held in prison in Louisiana. Today the system holds just over 500 children statewide. In 1998 the rate of recidivism, or children returning to prison after release, was 56% as compared to 11% today. This decrease in the number of children incarcerated has contributed to an increase in
public safety Public security or public safety is the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety and security of the public from significant danger, injury, or property damage. It is often conducted by a state government to ensur ...
.


Proposition 21 in California

In 2001
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
residents passed Proposition 21, a multi-faceted proposition designed to be tough on youth crime, incorporating many youth offenders into the adult criminal justice
jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. Jur ...
. Opponents to this law included activists from Californians for Justice,
Critical Resistance Critical Resistance is a U.S. based organization that works to build a mass movement to dismantle what it calls the prison-industrial complex (PIC). Critical Resistance's national office is in Oakland, California, with three additional chapters ...
, the Youth Force Coalition, the
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is a non-profit strategy and action center based in Oakland, California. The stated aim of the center is to work for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America. It is named for Ella Baker, a twentieth-c ...
, and the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
. Advocates in the ACLU challenged many portions of the law, including a provision automatically sentencing youth 14–17 years old in adult court. This portion of the law was struck down by the
California Courts of Appeal The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along county lines into six appellate districts.
in 2001.


Opposing zero-tolerance policies

The term "
zero tolerance A zero tolerance policy is one which imposes a punishment for every infraction of a stated rule.zero tolerance, n.' (under ''zero, n.''). The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Ed. 1989. Retrieved 10 November 2009. Italy, Japan, Singapore China, Indi ...
" is not defined in law or regulation; nor is there a single widely accepted practice definition. The
United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Departmen ...
, National Center for Education Statistics, defined zero tolerance as "a policy that mandates predetermined
consequences Consequence may refer to: * Logical consequence, also known as a ''consequence relation'', or ''entailment'' * In operant conditioning, a result of some behavior * Consequentialism, a theory in philosophy in which the morality of an act is determi ...
or
punishment Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular acti ...
s for specified offenses".Anne J. Atkinson, Ph.D (2005)"ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES: AN ISSUE BRIEF" Prepared for the Virginia Department of Education. Richmond, VA: PolicyWorks, Ltd. The purpose of zero-tolerance policies, according to their proponents, is to send a message that certain kinds of behaviors are not tolerable on school grounds. About 94% of public schools in the United States have zero-tolerance policies for guns; 91% for other weapons; 88% for drugs; 87% for alcohol and 79% for tobacco. Opposition to zero-tolerance policies, especially at the local level, focus on critiques including charges that the program is
discriminatory Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, rel ...
,
unconstitutional Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
, harmful to schools and students, ineptly implemented, and provides harsh punishment (
suspension Suspension or suspended may refer to: Science and engineering * Suspension (topology), in mathematics * Suspension (dynamical systems), in mathematics * Suspension of a ring, in mathematics * Suspension (chemistry), small solid particles suspende ...
of education) for minor offenses (possession of tobacco). A few infamous cases have been used by opposition groups, such as
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
, to further their case against the policy. The Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice released a story in 2003 about a 13-year-old girl in
Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population o ...
arrested and detained for 5 weeks for possession of what was thought to be marijuana, but turned out to be oregano. The zero-tolerance practice in Illinois of sending any youth charged with drug crimes within 1,000 feet of any school or public housing project directly to adult court has resulted in the largest racial disparity in the country—over 99% of youth affected by this policy were minority youth. Opposition to zero-tolerance policies nationwide and locally is broad and growing. Organizational leadership has been provided nationally by
Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
and the
American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...
, who has officially opposed such policies since 2001.


Promoting alternatives: the JDAI

Most activists in the movement to end youth incarceration believe that the best way to mitigate the impact of detention and incarceration on our youth is to reduce the number of youth that pass through the system. By providing credible alternatives to incarceration, this portion of the movement provides opportunities for communities to treat, rather than punish, young offenders—much the way that the juvenile justice system was founded to do. The Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) is a private-public partnership being implemented nationwide, with pilot programs in
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
,
Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
,
New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
and
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. Their goal is to make sure that locked detention is used only when absolutely necessary. As of 2003, the JDAI had produced some promising results from their programs. Detention center populations fell by between 14% and 88% in JDAI counties over the course of 7 years (1996–2003). These same counties saw declines in juvenile arrests (an indicator of overall juvenile crime rates) during the same time period ranging from 37–54%. Alternatives for juvenile detention centers for rehabilitation and reentry processes for those already incarcerated requires the work of counselors who understand the psychology of these individuals. Effective diversion programs are the best strategy to ensure children and youth to stay away from detention centers. Diversion programs could include everything from counseling to peer mentoring in order to improve the relationship in the community and remove the stigma of criminal youth. There are solutions proven effective for those communities that impose them. For example, intervention centers are a progressive solution where trouble kids get the opportunity to be disciplined to correct behavior but the process involves family involvement, community service activities, and one-on-one therapy. Legislation work such as Colorado's Smart School Discipline Law work to implement prevention strategies in an early stage starting in school, revise and provide adequate training to police officers in order to find proper disciplinary practice when dealing with trouble students. The initiative has become part of a bigger network to be implemented nationwide.


See also

*
American juvenile justice system The American juvenile justice system is the primary system used to handle minors who are convicted of criminal offenses. The system is composed of a federal and many separate state, territorial, and local jurisdictions, with states and the feder ...
* Juvenile court *
Juvenile delinquency in the United States Juvenile delinquency in the United States refers to crimes committed by children or young people, particularly those under the age of eighteen (or seventeen in some states). Juvenile delinquency has been the focus of much attention since the 1 ...
*
Kids for cash scandal The "kids for cash" scandal centered on judicial kickbacks to two judges at the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, US. In 2008, judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella were convicted of accepting money in retu ...
* Prison-industrial complex *
School-to-prison pipeline In the United States, the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), also known as the school-to-prison link, school–prison nexus, or schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgroun ...
* Trial as an adult in the United States


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Table 6.9.2003 - Number and rate (per 100,000 juveniles age 10 through upper age of jurisdiction) of juveniles in public and private residential custody facilities, by State, 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003.
{{Portal bar, United States Incarceration rates in the United States Human rights in the United States Penal system in the United States Incarceration United States Incarceration