BENEDEK ALPAR/SHUTTERSTOCK
The tally of Black youth detained in juvenile facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic reached a record high last January, while the same count for white youth was the second lowest since the Annie E. Casey Foundation started tracking that data.
The foundation’s most recent monthly analysis showed that, as of Feb. 1, whites had spent less time in detention than Blacks, who also were incarcerated for longer periods than they’d been detained before the pandemic started.
Aimed at measuring the pandemic’s impact on 144 juvenile justice systems across 33 states, the Casey Foundation survey started in March 2020.
By its most recent count, during January 2021, there was a:
- 6% decline in the population of non-Latinx white youth in juvenile detention.
- 2% uptick in the population of Latinx youth in juvenile detention.
- 14% increase in the population of Black youth in juvenile detention.
Additional findings of that most recent monthly analysis were these:
- Overall, youth detention rose by more than 6% from May 1, 2020 to Feb. 1, 2021, a surge mainly driven by Black and Latinx youth remaining in detention longer.
- Admissions to detention were roughly 50% lower than their pre-pandemic, January 2020 rate.
- Compared to when COVID-19 case counts peaked in late 2020 and early 2021, juvenile facilities recorded fewer active cases of the virus among youth and facility staffers.
“Jurisdictions have told us they think that longer lengths of stay in detention are being driven by a detention population that now only contains youth with the most serious offenses and complex cases,” Nate Balis, director of the foundation’s juvenile justice strategy group, said, according to an announcement about the analysis. “If that’s so for all racial and ethnic groups, then jurisdictions must determine why it’s primarily Black and Latino youth who seem to be getting stuck in detention.”
