By Amber Farn and Michael Umpierre

Authored in partnership with the Council of Juvenile Justice Administrators (CJJA) and with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew), this publication provides an overview of research related to length of stay and lessons learned from the Length of Stay Policy Academy hosted by CJJR and CJJA in 2020 with support from Pew. The report features length of stay efforts from the jurisdictions that participated in the Academy, including Bexar County, Texas; Idaho; Maryland; New York City, New York; and Oklahoma, as well as other states that have led related initiatives such as Arkansas, Illinois, and Utah. Policymakers.

Washington, DC: Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, 2023. 33p.

By Hazel Kemshall

HM Inspectorate of Probation is committed to reviewing, developing and promoting the evidence base for high-quality probation and youth offending services. Academic Insights are aimed at all those with an interest in the evidence base. We commission leading academics to present their views on specific topics, assisting with informed debate and aiding understanding of what helps and what hinders probation and youth offending services. This report was kindly produced by Professor Hazel Kemshall, summarising key learning for practitioners and organisations in relation to risk management. Practitioners are often required to make decisions in challenging situations with incomplete information, and it is thus important to pay attention to the potential influence of subjective biases and individual emotions and values. To minimise error and ensure that decisions are balanced, reasoned and well-evidenced, practitioners need to seek and critically appraise information, and adopt an open, honest and reflective approach….

Manchester: HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2021. 16p.

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 Tim Bateman, Anne-Marie Day and John Pitts

Although there are some important limitations with the data, the available evidence demonstrates conclusively that children who are in the care of the local authority are consistently over-represented among those who come to the attention of the youth justice system. A similar disproportionality is also evident within the children’s custodial estate. While it appears that the relationship is long-standing, it has only recently become the focus of policy attention which has begun to explore some of the reasons for the patterns discernible in the figures (see, for example, Schofield et al, 2012: Laming, 2016). In particular, an independent review of the relationship between the care system and the criminal justice system, led by Lord Laming, commissioned an extensive exploration of the available literature that provides a useful baseline for future research (Staines, 2016). The current review aims to provide a context for research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, that aims to identity the particular pathways of looked after children into, through and leaving custody and to establish in what ways, and to what extent, these might differ from those of children who do not have care experience. It does not accordingly aim to replicate the earlier work identified in the previous paragraph; instead the intention is to draw on previous reviews, and relevant additional material, through a lens that focuses on the existing evidence base as it relates specifically to the likelihood of children being incarcerated, to their subsequent custodial experience and to the provision of effective resettlement once they have been released.

Luton: University of Bedfordshire, 2018. 37p.

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 Richard Mendel

As The Sentencing Project documented in Why Youth Incarceration Fails: An Updated Review of the Evidence, compelling research proves that incarceration is not necessary or effective in the vast majority of delinquency cases. Rather, incarceration most often increases young people’s likelihood of returning to the justice system. Incarceration also damages young people’s future success in education and employment. Further, it exposes young people, many of whom are already traumatized, to abuse, and it contradicts the clear lessons of adolescent development research. These harms of incarceration are inflicted disproportionately on Black youth and other youth of color. Reversing America’s continuing overreliance on incarceration will require two sets of complementary reforms. First, it will require far greater use of effective alternative-to-incarceration programs for youth who have committed serious offenses and might otherwise face incarceration. Second, it will require extensive reforms to state and local youth justice systems, most of which continue to employ problematic policies and practices that can undermine the success of alternative programs and often lead to incarceration of youth who pose minimal risk to public safety. This report addresses the first challenge: What kinds of interventions can youth justice systems offer in lieu of incarceration for youth who pose a significant risk to public safety?1 Specifically, it identifies six program models that consistently produce better results than incarceration, and it details the essential characteristics required for any alternative-to-incarceration program – including homegrown programs developed by local justice system leaders and community partners – to reduce young people’s likelihood of reoffending and steer them to success.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 33p.

By  Anne-Marie Day, Tim Bateman and John Pitts

  It is well documented that children in care – those looked-after by the local authority – are over-represented in the youth justice system.1 In recent years, the relationship between care and crime has begun to receive increasing academic and policy attention, culminating, in 2018, in the government publishing a national protocol to reduce unnecessary criminalisation of children in care and improve the criminal justice responses when they do enter the youth justice system. The use of child imprisonment has fallen dramatically over the past decade, but the experiences of children confined in the secure estate has worsened, leading to widespread acknowledgement that the incarceration of children is damaging and counterproductive and that existing provision is not fit for purpose. Looked-after children who come into contact with the justice system are seven times more likely to be detained than their non-care equivalents, but little is known about the factors leading to such over-representation or the differential experiences of children in care while in detention. This report bridges that evidence gap by considering the relationship between care and imprisonment. The research on which it draws, across the nine local authorities in the South and West Yorkshire Resettlement Consortium (SWYC) area, explored the pathways of looked-after children into, through and out of the custodial estate. A comparative approach allowed the identification of the extent to which those pathways differ for children in care and those who are not.

Bedminster, UK: University of Bedminster, 2020. 79p.

By Josh Rovner

The Sentencing Project, in its national survey of life and virtual life sentences in the United States found 1,465 people serving JLWOP sentences at the start of 2020. This number reflects a 38% drop in the population of people serving JLWOP since our 2016 count and a 44% drop since the peak count of JLWOP figures in 2012.1 This count continues to decline as more states eliminate JLWOP. In five decisions – Roper v. Simmons (2005), Graham v. Florida (2010), Miller v. Alabama (2012), Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), and Jones v. Mississippi (2021) – the Supreme Court of the United States establishes and upholds the fact that “children are constitutionally different from adults in their levels of culpability”2 when it comes to sentencing. Differences in maturity and accountability informs the protections of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment that limits sentencing a child to die in prison. Research on adolescent brain development confirms the commonsense understanding that children are different from adults in ways that are critical to identifying age-appropriate criminal sentences. This understanding – Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy called it what “any parent knows”3 – was central to the recent Supreme Court decisions excluding people under 18 from the harshest sentencing practices. Starting in 2005, Roper struck down the death penalty for people under 18…...  

Washington DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023.  6p.

By Christina A. Sorenson

Screaming Into The Void: Youth Voice in Institutional Placements is a report written by 2019 Soros Justice Fellow Christina K. Sorenson. This comprehensive report includes a personal anthology, a historical analysis, a review of the current state of affairs, an in-depth look at Pennsylvania, and a 51- jurisdictional research survey of youth grievance protections in institutional placements across the dependency and delinquency systems. The historical analysis is limited but essential to understanding the current system's failures and the need for system re-imagining.

The regularity of out-of-state placement necessitates a national perspective. The complicated intersection of federal and state laws exists ostensibly to protect the children we incarcerate. However, the research in this report unequivocally proves that nationwide, our oversight systems systematically dis-empower youth, hide abuses and limit liability.

Organized around three core components: See Youth, Hear Youth, and Protect Youth, this report weaves an existing analysis of protections across the county with multi-disciplinary recommendations and approaches. Finally, there is a curriculum developed by expert Antonio Thomas, to help jurisdictions work directly in partnership with youth to develop youth-centered grievance protections.

The purpose of this report is not to offer an answer, a model, or a template for grievance protection. Instead, the history, state statutory and regulatory review, and curriculum aim to supply the resources necessary for policy-makers and advocates to empower and include local youth with lived experience in imagining and implementing effective youth-centered grievance protections.
Philadelphia: Juvenile Law Center, 2023. 108p.

By Patricia Soung

The dramatic growth of prison populations in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth century, as well as the problems of over-policing and police misconduct, have been well documented and decried.1 But the related expansion and problems of community supervision receive far less attention. Across the nation, reform efforts have increasingly included a focus on probation, especially juvenile probation, as an actor that both jails and polices youth in the community while also trying to rehabilitate them and promote their well-being. This Article studies the juvenile probation system, with a focus on California as one important system aiming to both surveil and care for individuals. It draws together two frameworks: 1) law and policy which describe the juvenile probation system as intended, and 2) juvenile probation practices and attitudes which reveal the day-to-day translation of the system’s formal intentions. Ultimately, where a system’s approach to rehabilitation and accountability become synonymous with or too reflexively able to adopt surveillance, containment, and punishment orientations, its ability to deliver meaningful help and support through that same system is improbable. Thus, this Article discusses the need in the United States to reform, dismantle, or replace probation with youth development-focused systems and uses Los Angeles as an example of a government already doing this important work

.112 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 549 (2022).

By Ben Finholt, Brandon L. Garrett, Karima Modjadidi, and Kristen M. Renberg 

Life without parole (LWOP) is “an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile,” as the U.S. Supreme Court noted in Graham v. Florida. The United States is the only country in the world that imposes juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. Many of these individuals were sentenced during a surge in LWOP sentencing in the 1990s. In the past decade, following several Supreme Court rulings eliminating mandatory sentences of LWOP for juvenile offenders, such sentencing has declined. This Article aims to empirically assess the rise and then the fall in JLWOP sentencing in a leading sentencing state, North Carolina, to better understand these trends and their implications.

We examine the cases of ninety-four North Carolina juveniles, aged thirteen to seventeen at the time of their offenses, who were sentenced to JLWOP. Of those, forty-nine are currently serving LWOP sentences. In North Carolina, JLWOP sentencing has markedly declined. Since 2011, there have been only five of such sentences. Of the group of ninety-four juvenile offenders, forty-four have so far been resentenced to non-LWOP sentences—largely pursuant to the post-Miller v. Alabama legislation passed in North Carolina. These JLWOP sentences are primarily concentrated in a small group of counties. A total of 61% (fifty-seven of the ninety-four) JLWOP sentences in North Carolina were entered in one of the eleven counties that have imposed more than three JLWOP sentences. We find a path dependency to these sentences: once a county has imposed a JLWOP sentence, it has a higher probability of imposing a JLWOP sentence again in the future. In contrast, homicide rates are not predictive of JLWOP sentences. We question what goals JLWOP serves, given what an inconsistently used, uncommon, geographically limited, and costly sentence it has been in practice. In conclusion, we describe alternatives to JLWOP, including the model adopted in states such as California and Wyoming, in which there is periodic review of lengthy sentences imposed on juvenile offenders.

110 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 141 (2020).

By Ashley Nellis and Niki Monazzam

  Beginning at age 18, U.S. laws typically require persons charged with a crime to have their case heard in criminal rather than juvenile court, where penalties are more severe.1 The justification for this is that people are essentially adults by age 18, yet this conceptualization of adulthood is flawed. The identification of full criminal accountability at age 18 ignores the important, distinct phase of human development referred to as emerging adulthood, also known as late adolescence or young adulthood.2 Compelling evidence shows that most adolescents are not fully matured into adulthood until their mid-twenties.3 The legal demarcation of 18 as adulthood rests on outdated notions of adolescence. Based on the best scientific understanding of human development, ages 18 to 25 mark a unique stage of life between childhood and adulthood which is recognized within the fields of neuroscience, sociology, and psychology. Thus, there is growing support for providing incarcerated people who were young at the time of their offense a second look at their original sentence to account for their diminished capacity. A 2022 study found similar levels of public support for providing a second look at prison sentences for crimes committed under age 18 as for those committed under age 25.4 This brief proceeds in three sections: • Analysis based on a newly compiled nationally representative dataset of nearly 30,000 individuals sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) between 1995 and 2017. • Research review on adolescent brain development revealing that emerging adults share more characteristics with youth than adults. • Judicial, legislative, and administrative reform updates in nine jurisdictions: California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Vermont, Washington, Washington, DC, and Wyoming.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 22p.  

By Amanda B. Gilman , Sarah Cusworth Walker , Kristin Vick, and Rachael Sanford  

  While there is ample research examining the short- and long-term effects of juvenile incarceration (broadly defined), less is known about the specific consequences of the most common form of youth incarceration, juvenile detention. We conducted a Rapid Evidence Review (RER), limiting our search to the past 10 years to include studies that captured modern juvenile justice practices, to assess the body of literature evaluating the effects of juvenile detention on youth outcomes. Our initial search yielded over 1,800 articles, but only three ultimately met criteria for inclusion in our review. We conclude that there is a profound lack of research regarding the consequences of juvenile detention, an issue that affects a large number of youth in the United States.

Crime and Delinquency, 67(11) : 1792-1813, 2021

By The National Juvenile Justice Network and the Texas Public Policy Foundation

This report presents information on nine States that have adopted policies within their juvenile justice systems aimed at reducing the incarceration rate of youth in the United States. The nine States singled out for their efforts include California, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Mississippi, New York, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. Using data collected by Federal agencies, this report presents details on national and State incarceration trends, with specific focus on the nine States. The analysis found that the decrease in youth incarceration rates is associated with changes in State policies since 2001 that have focused on increasing the availability of evidence-based alternatives to incarceration; requiring intake procedures that reduce use of secure detention facilities; closing or downsizing youth confinement facilities; reducing schools' overreliance on the justice system to address discipline issues; disallowing incarceration for minor offenses; and restructuring juvenile justice responsibilities and finances among States and counties. The nine States identified in this report were selected as a result of adopting at least four of the six policy changes, exceeding the national-average reduction in youth confinement for the period 2001-2010, and experiencing a decline in youth arrests for the same period.

Washington, DC: National Juvenile Justice Network; Austin, TX: Texas Public policy Foundation, 2013. 54p.