Changing Course in Youth Detention: Reversing Widening Gaps by Race and Place

By The Annie E. Casey Foundation

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 prepandemic 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. Beneath the surface of that simple story, the Foundation observed significant and concerning changes, especially for Black youth: • Black youth were almost 10 times more likely to be detained than their white peers on January 1, 2023. Prior to the pandemic, Black youth were detained at more than six times the rate of white youth. • The overall population has returned to its old level — and for Black youth surpassed it. Even though the rate of admissions to detention centers is still much lower for Black, Hispanic and white youth than it was before the pandemic, the population has rebounded — and even surpassed its prepandemic level for Black youth. Why? Because the young people in detention, especially Black youth, are staying there longer. Since the early days of the pandemic, a protracted slowdown in the pace of releasing youth from detention has kept the detained population higher than it should be — more than 70% higher as of January 1, 2023, than it would have been if releases kept pace with their pandemic-era highs. • Local differences in the use of detention across states and localities have increased dramatically. Jurisdictions that had similar patterns of detention use at the start of 2020 adopted vastly different patterns over the course of the pandemic. When comparing the third of sites with the biggest increases in detention over the past three years with the sites with the biggest decreases, the data showed one group had slashed its use of detention by almost 30% while the other had a 60% increase. • Survey jurisdictions in the Midwest, which already had higher rates of detention than those in other regions before the pandemic, have had the largest increases since then. Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s definitions of Midwest, Northeast, South and West, a comparison of trends by region shows that survey sites in the Midwest had a detention rate 60% higher than those in other regions in January 2020. Three years later, that gap had grown to 80%. Racial and ethnic disparities were highest in the Northeast before the pandemic and increased even more than other regions, mostly due to a severe slowdown in the pace of releases for Black youth.

Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2023. 23p.