By Delvin Davis; Southern Poverty Law Center

Alabama has a long history of incarcerating Black children. For generations, the state has overly criminalized Black youth, pushing them out of school without due process and penalizing them more harshly than their white counterparts. Today, youth incarceration has also evolved into a lucrative business venture in Alabama. For-profit youth detention facilities have been repeatedly exposed for rampant abuse, while cutting corners to maximize financial profit. Overall, Alabama’s approach to youth justice has produced persistent racial disparities and a system that is more expensive than it is rehabilitative. This report examines the state’s youth legal system and offers policy recommendations for reform. Alabama’s youth legal system overemphasizes incarceration, even though youth crime rates have declined for decades. •  Contrary to the “superpredator” myth that predicted a sharp increase in youth crime, youth arrest rates decreased by 80%  in the U.S. and 86% in Alabama from 2000 to 2020. •  Alabama has the eighth-highest youth incarceration rate in the nation as of 2021. 4 Alabama’s school-to-prison pipeline and youth incarceration disproportionately impact  Black children. •  A Black student is suspended from Alabama schools every 15 minutes – leading to the sixth-highest suspension and expulsion rates in the country. •  Black children are more likely to be suspended from school than their white counterparts, even when committing similar offenses. •  Alabama’s schools are more likely to refer Black boys with disabilities to law enforcement than any other group of students. Alabama’s youth detention facilities – especially ones run for profit – have proven to be dangerously abusive to youth and expensive for taxpayers. •  Incarcerated youth experience harm from excessive solitary confinement, physical and sexual abuse, and educational disruption – all contributing to recidivism. •  Incarcerating a young person in Alabama for one year in a public facility ($161,694) or private facility ($120,450) is more expensive than the annual cost to educate that child in Alabama public schools ($12,092), fund community-based programs ($20,075), and pay for attendance at the University of Alabama and Auburn University combined Policy reforms for Alabama should prioritize youth rehabilitation, disruption of the school-to-prison pipeline, and investment in the successful futures  of children. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s recommendations: 1.  Alabama should end exclusionary and punitive discipline as an arbitrary, routine practice and require that local school boards create due process protections against long-term suspensions and expulsions. 2.  Alabama should discontinue the use of privately owned for-profit youth incarceration facilities. 3.  Alabama should make nonviolent offenses, especially technical violations and nonviolent drug offenses, nonjailable offenses for youth. 4.  Alabama should raise the minimum age of youth incarceration and prosecution in the state from 11 to at least 14. 5.  Alabama should invest in communitybased alternatives to youth incarceration, and school-based policies that prioritize rehabilitation and services to support children’s needs.

Montgomery, Ala.: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2024. 26p.