By Nicholas M. Pace, Dulani Woods, Roberto Guevara, Chau Pham, Shamena Anwar

In 2019, the Utah Indigent Defense Commission (IDC) asked the RAND Corporation for assistance in determining maximum caseload standards for providers of indigent legal representation to defendants in trial-level courts and to minors in juvenile courts of the state of Utah. Maximum caseload standards, typically expressed in terms of the number of cases of a particular type that can be reasonably handled by an attorney over the course of a specific time period, are a useful tool for determining both when caseloads are in danger of being excessive and the number of attorneys that may be needed to handle expected demand.

Similar to previous studies in other states that have also addressed the question of reasonable caseloads, this project conducted three data collection efforts to provide the empirical foundation for the Utah standards: an analysis of attorney time records maintained by two large public defender offices in Salt Lake County, a survey of indigent defenders practicing in Utah, and the convening of a panel of experts to reach consensus on recommended average time expenditures for counsel representing indigent defendants in various categories of criminal matters in Utah trial courts. The authors present for the IDC's consideration recommended caseload standards based on analysis of the collected data.

Key Findings

Adoption of the expert panel's recommendations would require a sharp increase in the supply of annual attorney hours available for indigent defense

The panel of experts, drawing on their own expertise and the data from the analysis of indigent defender time records and the survey of indigent defenders practicing in Utah, recommended average hours that were significantly greater than the results of the time analysis or attorney survey.

The minimum increase beyond reported average attorney hours was 46 percent, and, depending on the category, the expert recommendations actually doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled what were reported as average time expenditures.

Santa Monica CA: Rand, 2022. 107p.

By Jeffrey Selbin

Maria Rivera was raising two boys on her own in Orange County, California, when her youngest son got into trouble. Although court records for youth are typically sealed, we know that in 2008 Ms. Rivera’s son became one of tens of thousands of young people referred annually to the state’s juvenile legal system, resulting in his detention for almost two years. Then came the bills. The county charged Ms. Rivera $23.90 for every day her son was detained and $2200 for his court-appointed lawyer. All told, Orange County said she owed more than $16,000. Until recently, California law authorized counties to charge administrative fees to parents and guardians for their children’s detention, lawyers, electronic monitoring, probation supervision, and drug testing. By statute, the fees were supposed to help counties recoup “the reasonable costs of support of the minor,” but the law also required counties to determine whether families could afford to pay the fees. Ms. Rivera was unemployed and unable to make payments, so Orange County should have waived her fees. But California’s “ability to pay” provisions, in fact, put the burden on families to appear before a financial evaluation officer to prove their inability to pay. Like many families with youth in the juvenile legal system, Ms. Rivera was unable to meet the county’s demands to make such a showing. To deal with the mounting bills, Ms. Rivera sold her house and paid the county more than $9500. The county did not consider the judgment fully satisfied, so it obtained a court order against Ms. Rivera for almost $10,000. On top of what she had already paid and for reasons the county never explained, the court order exceeded what the county originally billed Ms. Rivera by more than $3000. Once a court orders juvenile fees to be paid, the debt becomes a civil judgment enforceable against the parent or guardian. Unlike most other civil judgments, juvenile fee debt lasts forever. If families fail to repay the debt, counties refer their accounts to the state’s Franchise Tax Board to intercept their tax refunds and garnish their wages. Unable to pay the civil judgment, Ms. Rivera filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy. When the bankruptcy court discharged her fee debt, Ms. Rivera may have thought the matter was resolved. But Orange County would not relent, eventually persuading the bankruptcy court to reinstate the debt on the grounds that it was not dischargeable under chapter 7. I

98 N.C. L. Rev. 401 (2020)

Jessica K. Heldman and Geoffrey A. Gaither

Racial disproportionality and disparity have long been characteristic of both the child welfare and youth justice systems. The origin of these systems continue to plague children, families, and communities. The impact of racism upon dual status youth—children who encounter both the child welfare and youth justice systems—is particularly concerning. Dual status youth tend to experience worse outcomes in a number of domains than youth involved in only one system. Dual status youth are also disproportionately Black —significantly more so than in any single system. Efforts to reform the youth justice system in recent years have included initiatives to improve outcomes for dual status youth and to interrupt the trajectory of dual system involvement—primarily the movement of youth from the child welfare system into the youth justice system. Other initiatives have sought to reduce or eliminate the racial disproportionality and disparities within both the child welfare and youth justice systems. This article suggests that each of these reform efforts must inform one another, and to make progress, both systems must acknowledge their shared history of racial discrimination and commit to transformative solutions. Part I of this article explores the phenomenon of dual status youth by reviewing existing research that identifies risk factors for dual status, including system experiences that too often contribute to dual system involvement, particularly for Black youth. Part II provides context for how racial discrimination affects Black dual status youth by exploring how both the child welfare and youth justice systems have historically interacted with Black children and families, highlighting examples of systematic discrimination in both systems. This section provides a brief synopsis of the evolution of child welfare and youth justice policy and the pervasive disenfranchisement of, disregard for, and dehumanization of Black youth and families within that policy context. Part III reviews evidence demonstrating that the disparate experiences of Black children and families are not simply a vestige of a bygone era, but persist today through multiple points of decision-making within these systems. This review highlights the policies and practices that compound the risk of Black foster youths’ initial and deepening involvement with the youth justice system. Part IV offers a starting place for the work of addressing disproportionality and disparities impacting Black dual status youth, challenging jurisdictions to commit to an anti-racist framework based on recognition, reorientation, and responsibility. This framework aims to create a foundation for crafting transformative solutions that positively impact children and families— particularly Black dual status youth.

I42 CHILD. LEGAL RTS. J. 21 (2022).

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.

By Joshua Rovner

This commentary discusses the evolution of youth justice policies in the United States and offers valuable insights into the successes and failures of these approaches. The report advocates for a more enlightened approach to criminal legal reform, backed by the successes of progressive approaches taken to the juvenile legal system.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 5p.

By Samantha Buckingham

Rehabilitation is a paramount consideration in abolishing police interrogation of youth. Interrogation is one of the first interactions young people have with the criminal legal system. Unfortunately, the most common methods of interrogation are coercive rather than consensual. Youth are uniquely vulnerable to coercive methods, especially in conjunction with racial, socioeconomic, and ableist hierarchies. Youth vulnerability requires more protective legal standards than those applied to mature adults. Current police practices, permitted by the very structure of the law, harm youth at a critical stage of their development and legal socialization. Interrogation is a missed opportunity to consider how every legal actor can incentivize youth to respect and follow the law. Reforms and scholarly proposals focused on adjusting police behavior or changing the circumstances of youth interrogation fail to ameliorate harm to youth. This Article examines how police interrogation of a youthful suspect may undercut rehabilitation by damaging that young person’s sense of belonging and desire to behave as society hopes. This Article concludes that the most appropriate and practicable solution is a categorical ban on officer-initiated interrogation of youth

North Carolina Law Review, 2023. 62p.

By Andrea R. Coleman

This bulletin discusses common misconceptions surrounding expungement. It also provides information about the collateral consequences of juvenile records as well as federal, state, and local emerging practices. The key information and findings include the following: • Expungement, sealing, and confidentiality are three legally distinct methods for destroying or limiting access to juvenile records. However, these methods may permit police, courts, or the public access to juvenile records, depending on state laws. • The public and impacted youth often erroneously believe that once police and courts expunge juvenile records they no longer exist. The handling of expunged juvenile records varies widely from state to state. • Youth with juvenile records frequently experience collateral consequences of their arrest or adjudication, which may include difficulty accessing educational services, obtaining employment, serving in the military, and finding and maintaining housing. • States, localities, and the federal government have implemented promising practices to decrease collateral consequences, including “ban the box” legislation and expungement clinics (Avery and Hernandez, 2018; Radice, 2017; Shah, Fine, and Gullen, 2014; Shah and Strout, 2016).

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2020. 12p.

By The Youth Justice Legal Centre (YJLC)

Children need and must be entitled to specialist legal representation. This has long been obvious. This new research adds to a growing body of evidence but for the first time highlights the extent to which solicitors are themselves seeking to address this training need. However, without clear guidance they are falling short, and children are being failed. There is no requirement for solicitors representing children in the criminal justice system to have any specialist training before entering a youth court or representing children at a police station. It therefore falls to individual solicitors to identify their training needs. Children end up with worse outcomes than they should as a direct result of lawyers being unaware of guidance and special protections available to children. This is confirmed by the research findings. The situation would be significantly improved if solicitors who represent children undertook regular training on key youth justice topics. More children would be diverted away from formal criminal justice processes, they would be better supported through legal processes and the risk of reoffending reduced. Put simply, children must have better.

London: YJLC, 2023. 8p.

By Katie Hunter

This thesis is concerned with the overrepresentation of black and minority ethnic (BME) children and looked after children, in the youth justice system in general and the secure state in particular, in England and Wales. In the period 1993 to 2008, youth justice was characterised by a process of extensive penal expansion. Since 2008, however, the child prison population has fallen dramatically. The decline has been linked to pragmatic cost reduction as well as an increase in diversionary measures which keep children out of the system altogether. However, BME children and looked after children have not benefited from this decline to the same extent as white children and non-looked after children. The contraction in the system has served to intensify existing inequalities. This thesis interrogates the nature and extent of the overrepresentation of these groups. It employs a mixed-methods approach which involves analyses of secondary data and in-depth interviews with 27 national youth justice and children’s services professionals. This thesis builds upon and extends previous research, it determines that BME children are criminalised through ‘institutional racialisation’ which operates on micro, meso and macro levels. The thesis signals policing as having a particularly powerful influence on the levels of BME children in the system. The weight of these findings lie precisely in the fact that they are so longstanding. …

Liverpool: University of Liverpool, 2019. 307p.

By Zhen Zeng, E. Ann Carson, and Rich Kluckow

Juveniles (persons age 17 or younger) arrested or convicted for a criminal offense may be housed in juvenile residential facilities or in adult jails and prisons, depending on state statute, judicial discretion, and federal law. This report details trends for juveniles who are held in adult facilities. Key Findings ƒ The number of juveniles incarcerated in all U.S. adult prisons or jails declined from a peak of 10,420 in 2008 to a low of 2,250 in 2021. In 2021, local jails had custody of 1,960 juveniles while state and federal adult prisons held 290. The percent of the total jail population who were juveniles declined from 0.9% in 2002 to 0.3% in 2021. The percent of the total prison population who were juveniles declined from 0.2% in 2002 to 0.02% in 2021. In 2021, 87% of juveniles in adult correctional facilities were held in local jails and 13% were held in prisons, compared to 66% in local jails and 34% in prisons in 2002, the earliest year for which comparable data are available for both populations

Just the Stats Series. Washington DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice 2023. 5p.

By Charles Puzzanchera, Sarah Hockenberry, and Melissa Sickmund  

  Youth and the Juvenile Justice System: 2022 National Report is the fifth edition of a comprehensive report on youth victimization, offending by youth, and the juvenile justice system. With this release, the report series has adopted a new name (the series was previously known as “Juvenile Offenders and Victims”), but the focus of the report remains unchanged: the report consists of the most requested information on youth and the juvenile justice system in the United States. Developed by the National Center for Juvenile Justice (NCJJ) for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and the National Institute of Justice, the report draws on reliable data and relevant research to provide a comprehensive and insightful view of youth victims and offending by youth, and what happens to youth when they enter the juvenile justice system in the U.S. The report offers—to Congress, state legislators, other state and local policymakers, educators, juvenile justice professionals, and concerned citizens— empirically based answers to frequently asked questions about the nature of youth victimization and offending and the justice system’s response. The juvenile justice system must react to the law-violating behaviors of youth in a manner that not only protects the community and holds youth accountable but also enhances youth’s ability to live productively and responsibly in the community. The system must also intervene in the lives of abused and neglected children who lack safe and nurturing environments. To respond to these complex issues, juvenile justice practitioners, policymakers, and the public must have access to useful and accurate information about the system and the youth it serves. At times, such information is not available or, when it does exist, it is often too scattered or inaccessible to be useful. This report bridges that gap by pulling together the most requested information on youth and the juvenile justice system in the United States. The report draws on numerous national data collections to address the specific information needs of those involved with the juvenile justice system. The report presents important and, at times, complex information using clear, nontechnical writing and easy to-understand graphics and tables. It is structured as a series of briefing papers on specific topics, short sections that can be read independently   

 Pittsburgh, PA:  National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2022. 226p.

By Vicky Kemp, Nicola Carr, Hope Kent and Stephen Farrall

  The criminal law is supposed to treat children, being those aged under 18 years, less harshly than it treats adults because of their developmental differences. Children also have particular legal rights due to their age, needs and circumstances. While the number of children arrested by the police has fallen by two-thirds over the past ten years, there were just under 53,000 people under 18 years old brought into police custody in England and Wales during the year ending March 2022. For children who come into conflict with the law, particularly those detained and questioned by the police, special protections are required to ensure that their legal rights are protected. In addition to legal safeguards under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), children arrested and detained by the police have legal protections under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Within the secure environment of police custody, however, children’s experiences are rarely heard, making them almost invisible during these early stages in the criminal process. This study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, explores the impact of PACE on the detention and questioning of child suspects. For the first time in England and Wales, this included researchers engaging with child suspects about their legal rights while detained. Talking to children about their experiences in police custody provided researchers with greater insight into the processing of child suspects by the police.  

Nottingham, UK: University of Nottingham, 2023. 121p

Edited by Finn-Aage Esbensen and Cheryl L. Maxson

As a steady source of juvenile delinquents and an incubator for future adult offenders, the youth gang has long been a focus of attention, from their origins and prevalence to intervention and prevention strategies. But while delinquent youth form gangs worldwide, youth gang research has generally focused on the U.S.

Youth Gangs in International Perspective provides a needed corrective by offering significant studies from across Europe, as well as Trinidad-Tobago and Israel. The book spans the diversity of the field in the cultural and scholarly traditions represented and methods used, analyzing not only the social processes under which gangs operate and cohere, but also the evolution of the research base, starting with the Eurogang Program’s definition of the term youth gang. Cross-national and gender issues are discussed, as are measurement concerns and the possibility that the American conception of the youth gang is impeding European understanding of these groups.

New York Dordrecht: Springer, 2012. 322p.

By Cara H. Drinan

In 2003, when Terrence Graham was sixteen, he and three other teens attempted to rob a barbeque restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida. Though they left with no money, and no one was seriously injured, Terrence was sentenced to die in prison for his involvement in that crime.

As shocking as Terrence's sentence sounds, it is merely a symptom of contemporary American juvenile justice practices. In the United States, adolescents are routinely transferred out of juvenile court and into adult criminal court without any judicial oversight. Once in adult court, children can be sentenced without regard for their youth. Juveniles are housed in adult correctional facilities, they may be held in solitary confinement, and they experience the highest rates of sexual and physical assault among inmates. Until 2005, children convicted in America's courts were subject to the death penalty; today, they still may be sentenced to die in prison-no matter what efforts they make to rehabilitate themselves. America has waged a war on kids.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 241p.,

By The Juvenile Law Center

The United States incarcerates youth at more than double the rate of any other country in the world. On any given day, almost 50,000 young people are locked up in juvenile facilities across the country. Although overall juvenile incarceration rates have been falling, Black youth are still over five times more likely than their white peers to be detained or committed to an institution.

We know these institutions—many of which are over 100 years old—are part of a punitive corrections-oriented approach that does not work for youth. Research shows that institutional settings harm young people developmentally, psychologically, and—far too often—physically. Yet our country continues to rely on this outdated model as the backbone of its juvenile justice system.

Philadelphia: Juvenile Law Center, 2018. 31p.