The following is adapted from the Kids Count 2004 Data Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This excerpt is about young people involved in the juvenile justice system.

No experience may be more predictive of future adult difficulty than having been confined in a secure juvenile facility. Many youth are held in detention centers because they have been arrested and are simply waiting for trial; others are incarcerated in secure congregate care facilities because they have been sentenced for a crime. However youth enter juvenile custody, almost all are at significant risk of failure when they exit.

For example, each year, there are more than 600,000 admissions to secure detention facilities. According to recent federal statistics, there are approximately 27,000 youth in these institutions on any given day, an increase of almost 100 percent since 1985. Despite public stereotypes that these are very dangerous youth, fewer than one-third are charged with offenses involving violence. More than one-third are detained for status offenses (non-criminal offenses such as running away) and various technical violations of probation and other rules. Approximately two-thirds of these kids are minority youth, and virtually all of the growth in detention over the past 15 years is due to greatly increased rates of detention for African Americans and Latinos. About two-thirds of all youth admitted to secure detention facilities will enter institutions that are overcrowded and unsafe. By professional standards, such places are unable to provide the kinds of custody or care that these youth require. The needs of detained and incarcerated youth are many and often severe:

• One-half to three-fourths of incarcerated youth nationwide are estimated to suffer from a mental health disorder. Suicide within juvenile detention and correctional facilities is more than four times greater than in the general population. At the same time, researchers and administrators alike decry the lack of appropriate assessment and treatment services for confined youth with mental health problems.

• It is estimated that more than half of all detained youth have drug use problems that require substance abuse treatment, yet relatively few facilities provide such services. One survey found that treatment for adolescent substance offenders was available in less than 40 percent of the nation’s public and private youth facilities.

• Academically, incarcerated youth function at a significantly lower level than peers their age. Studies indicate that although 10 percent to 12 percent of the general population suffers from learning disabilities, rates are as high as 42 percent among the correctional population. Yet reviews of educational programs in these institutions consistently indicate that incarcerated youth receive markedly substandard and inadequate educational services. Their educational progress is further compromised because school districts are often averse to re-enrolling youth upon their release and often refuse to accept any academic credits that they may have earned while incarcerated.

Confined youth lose daily contact with their families, lose valuable school time, and are unlikely to have their health and mental health needs met. They are much more likely to be tutored in crime than they are in math, and their mentors are much more likely to be offenders than caring adults. The reality is that months in confinement can increase the odds of negative adult outcomes for a 16-year-old by jump-starting a spiral of failure that often becomes impossible to escape. Far too often, incarceration under current practices serves as a trip wire for long-term criminal involvement and future failure.

The overall effects of confinement, combined with our dismal national record for providing quality after-care services for youth once they are released, make adolescent incarceration a significant risk factor for compromised adulthoods. For example:

• Once incarcerated, youth are far less likely to gain the education credentials to succeed. One longitudinal study of incarcerated 9th graders found that only slightly more than half returned to school when released. Of these, more than two-thirds dropped out or withdrew within 1 year of re-enrolling, and 4 years later, only 15 percent had completed high school.²⁰ Other research also confirms that most released juvenile offenders 16 and older never return to any formal education.

• Incarcerated youth, without appropriate treatment, connections, and support systems, are more likely to re-offend and get re-arrested. Numerous studies point to recidivism rates of 50 percent to 75 percent.22 In fact, prior confinement is the strongest predictor of future incarceration. It is actually a stronger predictor than gang membership, poor parental relations, prior offense history, and other characteristics.

• The effects of incarceration on prospective employment are profound. Formerly incarcerated youth work 3 to 5 weeks less a year than those never incarcerated—a disadvantage that carries over far into adulthood. Controlling for other factors, the impact of incarceration on employment is greater than the impact of a youth living in a high unemployment area or being a high school dropout. According to the London School of Economics, having been in jail is the most important deterrent to employment, and its effect, even years later, is persistent and substantial.

Access the entire Kids Count essay and databook online at the Annie E. Casey Foundation Web site. http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/databook/