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National Statistics

These national statistics reflect the reality of trying, sentencing and incarcerating children in the adult criminal justice system.

Youth Crime

• Youth commit only a small portion of the nation's crime. For example, in 2006, 12.6 percent of violence crime clearances and 19.1 percent of the property crime clearances nationwide involved only youth. According to the FBI, youth under age 18 accounted for only 15.4 percent of all arrests.
• Youth crime has also been going down for many years. The number of adults arrested in 2006 and in 1997 was virtually the same, whereas the number of juveniles arrested dropped a staggering 24 percent during that same time frame.

Juvenile Justice System

• Every year, juvenile courts in the U.S. handle an estimated 1.6 million cases in which the youth was charged with a delinquency offense.
• After arrest, many youth are detained in a detention or residential facility to await a hearing in juvenile or adult court, depending on how they are charged. While in out-of-home placement, youth are separated from their community and their normal day-to-day life (school, jobs, family, etc.).
• One out of every five youth who are brought before the court with a delinquency case is placed in a  juvenile detention facility.
• Detention facilities are meant to temporarily house youth who are likely to commit another crime before their trial or who are likely to skip their court date. Unfortunately, many of the youth held in the 591 detention centers across the country do not meet these criteria and should not be there.
• Seventy percent of youth in detention are held for nonviolent charges. More than two-thirds are charged with property offenses, public order offenses, techncial probation violations, or status offenses (crimes that wouldn't be crimes if they were adults, like running away or breaking curfew).
• The overuse of detention is particularly harsh on youth of color. In 2003, African-American youth were detained at a rate 4.5 times higher than whites. Latino youth were detained at twice the rate of whites.
• Nearly 70 percent of children in public detention centers are in overcrowded facilities holding more youth than they were designed for.
• A one-day snapshot of juvenile offenders in detention found that roughly 5% were status offenders.
• After adjudication, many youth are sentenced to juvenile correctional facilities or state training schools. On any given day, over 90,000 youth are incarcerated in juvenile correctional facilities.
• Adjudicated youth sent to residential placements such as juvenile correctional facilities increased by 44% from 1985 to 2002.
• there are less severe alternatives to incarcerating youth, and they work. Community-based programs, including diversion programs, drug treatment, evenign reporting centers, treatment clinics and family programs have been shown to be less costly than detention or incarceration and to help youth stay out of trouble and to not re-offend.

Youth in the Adult Criminal Justice System

• An estimated 200,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year across the United States.
• Most of the youth prosecuted in adult court are charged with non-violent offenses.
• Research shows that young people who are kept in the juvenile justice system are less likely to re-offend than young people who are transferred into the adult system. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, youth who are transferred from the juvenile court system to the adult criminal system are approximately 34% more likely than youth retained in the juvenile court system to be re-arrested for violent or other crime.
• Currently, 40 states permit or require that youth charged as adults be held before they are tried in an adult jail. In some states, if they are convicted, they may be required to serve their entire sentence in an adult jail.
• On any given day, nearly 7,500 young people are locked up in adult jails.
• A significant portion of youth detained in adult jails before their trial are not convicted as adults. As many as one-half of these youth will be sent back to the juvenile justice system or not be convicted. Yet, most of these youth will have spent at least one month in an adult jail and one in five of these youth will have spent over six months in an adult jail.
• On any given day, more than 2,000 young people are locked up in adult prisons.