HELP US END MASS INCARCERATION
The Prison Policy Initiative uses research, advocacy, and organizing to dismantle mass incarceration. We’ve been in this movement for 22 years, thanks to individual donors like you.
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Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate
Can you help us sustain this work?
Thank you,
Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate
Youth
Juvenile justice and the prison system's effect on children
- Most confined youth are held for non-person offenses, many for acts that are not "crimes" at all (Created: 2023)
- Nearly 10% of confined girls are held for status offenses such as "running away, truancy, and incorrigibility" (Created: 2023)
- More than 1 in 3 people in state prison were first arrested before their 16th birthday (Created: 2022)
- Most people in state prison were first arrested as youth (Created: 2022)
- Criminal justice involvement began in youth for many trans people in state prison (Created: 2022)
- Early experiences of homelessness and poverty among the 29 transgender respondents (Created: 2022)
- Arrest rates for most youth are falling, while Native youth arrests are on the rise (Created: 2021)
- For the lowest level offenses, the juvenile justice system confines Native and Black youth at 3 times the rate of white youth (Created: 2021)
- The juvenile justice system confines Native youth at a rate higher than the rates of white, Hispanic, and Asian youth combined (Created: 2021)
- Black youth are arrested far out of proportion to their share of all youth in the U.S. (Created: 2020)
- The juvenile justice system confines Black youth at over 4 times the rate of white youth (Created: 2020)
- For the lowest level offenses, Black and American Indian youth are confined at rates over 3 times the rate of white youth (Created: 2020)
- Youth in juvenile facilities, by age (Created: 2020)
- How many youths are locked up in the United States? (Created: 2019)
- Two-thirds of confined youth are in the most restrictive facilities (Created: 2019)
- How many youths are locked up for the most minor offenses? (Created: 2019)
- Racial disparities in LGBTQ youth homelessness and juvenile justice system confinement (Created: 2019)
- Incarceration for drug offense in different parts of the justice system (Created: 2018)
- How many youths are locked up for the most minor offenses? (detail) (Created: 2018)
- Nearly 16,000 youths are "detained" in juvenile facilities (Created: 2018)
- In North Carolina, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- In Missouri, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- In Illinois, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- In Mississippi, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- In Florida, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- In Louisiana, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- In Michigan, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- In Pennsylvania, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- 82% of juveniles serving life without parole sentences are in just 9 states (Created: 2016)
- Rate at which black juvenile offenders are given life without parole sentences to their white peers (Created: 2016)
- In the United States, juveniles serving life without parole are disproportionately people of color (Created: 2016)
- Most incarcerated youth are locked up for nonviolent offenses (Created: 2016)
- Young males incarcerated at very high rates (Created: 2012)
- In the modern world, only rogue nations execute juvenile offenders (Created: 2004)
- Juveniles in adult prisons, by race (Created: 2003)
- The one-day count of youth in juvenile justice "residential placement" facilities has dropped by over 60 percent since 2000 (Created: 1969)
