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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Juvenile Incarceration in the US

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  • Report finds youth incarceration on steep decline in Md., U.S., By Justin Fenton, February 27, 2013, Baltimore Sun: “The rate of youth confinement in Maryland declined by nearly half over a 13-year period, outpacing the national average amid a ‘sea change’ in the approach toward dealing with young people who break the law, according to a report released by a national youth advocacy group. From 1997 to 2010, the rate of youth incarceration dropped 37 percent, according to the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation. The group noted that the United States leads the industrialized world in locking up young people, and said that the majority of incarcerated youths are held for nonviolent offenses such as truancy and low-level property crime…”
  • Tennessee leads in shrinking juvenile detention rate, By Bartholomew Sullivan, March 3, 2013, Knoxville News Sentinel: “The rate of juvenile detention has fallen to its lowest national level in 35 years, with Tennessee showing the biggest drop, a new analysis of federal statistics shows. ‘Reducing Youth Incarceration in the U.S.,’ released Wednesday by the private Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, shows a significant decline in confinement of people younger than 21. Lockups peaked in 1995, with 105,055 behind bars on a single day. By 2010, that number had fallen to 70,792 on a comparable day. Over that period, the detention rate dropped from 350 to 225 per 100,000 youths, according to data drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement…”
  • La. juvenile incarceration rates fall, report says, By Mark Ballard, February 28, 2013, Baton Rouge Advocate: “Louisiana was among 44 states that saw decreases in their youth incarceration rates between 1997 and 2010, according to a report released Wednesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Louisiana’s 56 percent reduction in its youth incarceration rate was one of the most dramatic improvements in the country, the report states. Only Tennessee, Connecticut and Arizona experienced larger declines during the time period, according to the report that the Baltimore-based foundation called a ‘snapshot…'”