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Summary
“The Annie E. Casey Foundation has found large and widening gaps in youth detention by race and place in its three-year analysis of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on juvenile justice systems. When it comes to the odds of being detained, young people in the United States live in different worlds, depending on their race and the region and jurisdiction where they reside. The disproportionate use of detention for Black youth — already distressingly high before the pandemic — has increased. Also, over that three-year period, where youth lived mattered to a greater extent to their odds of being detained than it did before.
The data from Casey’s monthly survey offer an unparalleled glimpse into what’s been happening in juvenile justice systems around the country over the past three years. Nationwide, youth detention fell sharply at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; largely held at that low level for a year; and then steadily returned to its pre-pandemic level. After falling by as much as 30% in the first few months of the pandemic, the number of youth held in juvenile detention in survey sites on January 1, 2023 (3,436 young people), rose to almost exactly the level reported on January 1, 2020 (3,410 young people) — and was rapidly increasing.”
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The Annie E. Casey Foundation is a funder of Youth Today. Read our editorial independence policy.
