Burning Down the House : The End of Juvenile Prison (9781595589668) (52 page)

    
7
  
66,332 American youth were confined in juvenile facilities
: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Reducing Youth Incarceration in the United States,” Kids Count Data Snapshot, February 2013, p. 1,
www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Initiatives/KIDS%20COUNT/R/ReducingYouthIncarcerationSnapshot/DataSnapshotYouthIncarceration.pdf
.

    
7
  
Most of these are boys
: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, “Females Proportion of Juveniles in Residential Placement, 2010,” Statistical Briefing Book, Juveniles in Corrections,
www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/corrections/qa08202.asp?qaDate=2010
.

    
7
  
police arrest nearly 2 million juveniles each year
: Charles Puzzanchera and Benjamin Adams, “Juvenile Offenders and Victims: National Report Series,” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs Newsletter, December 2011,
www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/236477.pdf
.

    
7
  
one in three American schoolchildren will be arrested by the age of twenty-three
: Robert Brame, Michael G. Turner, Raymond Paternoster, and Shawn D. Bush-way, “Cumulative Prevalence of Arrest from Ages 8 to 23 in a National Sample,”
Pediatrics
, December 19, 2011, doi:10.1542/peds.2010–3710,
pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/12/14/peds.2010–3710.abstract
.

    
7
  
Sky-high recidivism rates
: Mendel,
No Place for Kids
.

    
7
  
putting youth behind bars not only fails to enhance public safety
: Dick Mendel, “In Juvenile Justice Care, Boys Get Worse,”
Youth Today
, March 5, 2010,
www.burnsinstitute.org/article.php?id=195
.

    
7
  
One recent longitudinal study of 35,000 young offenders
: Mary Schmich, “Locking Up Juveniles May Plant Seeds of More Crime,”
Chicago Tribune
, 2013,
www.modelsforchange.net/newsroom/524
; and Nicholas D. Kristof, “Help Thy Neighbor and Go Straight to Prison,”
New York Times
, August 11, 2013, p. SR1.

    
7
  
the single most significant factor in predicting whether a youth will offend again
:
B.B. Benda and C.L. Tollet, “A Study of Recidivism of Serious and Persistent Offenders Among Adolescents,”
Journal of Criminal Justice
27, no. 2 (1999): 111–26. Cited in Barry Holman and Jason Ziedenberg, “The Dangers of Detention: The Impact of Incarcerating Youth in Detention and Other Secure Facilities,” Justice Policy Institute report, November 28, 2006,
www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/06–11_REP_DangersOfDetention_JJ.pdf
.

    
7
  
“A century of experience”
: Barry C. Feld,
Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

    
8
  
Beyond this central failure
: Mendel,
No Place for Kids
.

    
8
  
Physical and sexual abuse are rampant
: See Chapters 5 and 6 on physical and sexual abuse, respectively, and Chapter 7 on solitary confinement.

    
8
  
Fully 80 to 90 percent of American teenagers have committed an illegal act
: Adapted by Hillary Hodgdon from Elizabeth Scott and Laurence Steinberg, “Adolescent Development and the Regulation of Youth Crime,”
Future of Children: Juvenile Justice
18, no. 2 (Fall 2008),
futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/highlights/18_02_Highlights_01.pdf
.

    
8
  
one-third of all teens have committed a serious crime
: Mendel, “In Juvenile Justice Care.”

    
8
  
By the time they reach adulthood they are crime-free
: Edward P. Mulvey, “Growing Up and Going Straight: Understanding Why Many Adolescent Offenders ‘Age Out' of a Life of Crime,” University of Pittsburgh, Office of Child Development, December 2006,
www.ocd.pitt.edu/Files/PDF/89.pdf
.

    
9
  
The young people who sit today inside locked facilities are, overwhelmingly, our nation's most vulnerable youth
: “The Costs of Confinement: Why Good Juvenile Justice Policies Make Good Fiscal Sense,” Justice Policy Institute, 2009, p. 2,
www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/09_05_REP_CostsofConfinement_JJ_PS.pdf
.

    
9
  
most confined youth pose little risk to public safety
: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Reducing Youth Incarceration,” p. 2.

  
11
  
Every study I've seen
: See, e.g., “Building a More Effective Juvenile Justice System,” Center on Early Adolescence, 2008,
www.earlyadolescence.org/juvenile_justice_system
; Richard A. Mendel,
The Missouri Model: Reinventing the Practice of Rehabilitating Youthful Offenders
(Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2010),
www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Initiatives/Juvenile%20Detention%20Alternatives%20Initiative/MOModel/MO_Fullreport_webfinal.pdf
. See also Chapter 12 and Chapter 13.

  
11
  
recidivism rates that send as many as four out of five juvenile parolees back behind bars
:
Available studies of youths released from residential corrections programs find that 70 to 80 percent of youths are rearrested within two or three years. See Mendel,
No Place for Kids
, figure 3.

  
12
  
The rate of juvenile confinement has dropped a remarkable 41 percent
: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Reducing Youth Incarceration.”

  
12
  
This shift has not led to a rise in youth crime
: “Juvenile Arrest Rate Trends,” Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Statistical Briefing Book, December 17, 2012,
www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05200
.

  
12
  
Politicians who back these changes are finding far more support
: Mark W. Lipsey, James C. Howell, Marion R. Kelly, Gabrielle Chapman, and Darin Carver, “Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice,” Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, December 2010, p. 8,
cjjr.georgetown.edu/pdfs/ebp/ebppaper.pdf
.

  
12
  
the United States still incarcerates more of its young people
: Pete Brook, “Uncompromising Photos Expose Juvenile Detention in America,”
Raw File
blog,
Wired
, April 11, 2012,
www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/04/photog-hopes-to-effect-policy-with-survey-of-juvenile-lock-ups/
. See also American Correctional Association,
2008 Directory of Adult and Juvenile Correctional Departments, Institutions, Agencies, and Probation and Parole Authorities
(Alexandria, VA: American Correctional Association, 2008).

  
13
  
spending a total of $5
billion
: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Reducing Youth Incarceration,” p. 2.

  
13
  
Even our closest competitor, South Africa
: Scott and Steinberg, “Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.”

  
13
  
We still fill our youth prisons primarily with young people who pose little or no threat to public safety
: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Reducing Youth Incarceration,” p. 2.

  
13
  
And we persist in sending them to places where they are likely to be victimized
: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “A Road Map for Juvenile Justice Reform,” 2012,
www.aecf.org/~/media/PublicationFiles/AEC180essay_booklet_MECH.pdf
.

  
13
  
interventions that rely on support and connection
: See Chapter 13.

  
14
  
Bart Lubow
: The Annie E. Casey Foundation provided funding to support this book.

1. Inside Juvenile Prison

  
21
  
Findings letter
: Ralph F. Boyd, “Re: CRIPA Investigation of Oakley and Columbia Training Schools in Raymond and Columbia, Mississippi,” June 19, 2003, p. 19,
www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/oak_colu_miss_findinglet.pdf
.

  
22
  
assigned an identification number
: Many young people I met remembered this multidigit number by heart even years after their release.

  
22
  
Anything that remains will be either stored, mailed home at his expense, or destroyed
: See, for example, Nebraska Department of Correctional Facilities,
www.corrections.state.ne.us/ncyf.html
.

  
23
  
submit to a search
:
Pope v. Roulain
, Civil Action no. 05-AR-1264-S, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama Southern Division, filed June 19, 2006,
www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-alnd-2_05-cv-01264/pdf/USCOURTS-alnd-2_05-cv-01264-0.pdf
.

  
23
  
squat and cough
: While the Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of strip searches in state juvenile facilities, “some federal circuit courts require reasonable suspicion of contraband possession to justify a strip search of an adult detained for a minor offense, but require a less stringent standard to justify strip searches of juveniles.” The Supreme Court has never upheld a strip search without individualized suspicion in any context other than the prison. Emily J. Nelson, “Custodial Strip Searches of Juveniles: How
Safford
Informs a New Two-Tiered Standard of Review,”
Boston College Law Review
52, no. 1 (2011): 339–74,
www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/schools/law/bclawreview/pdf/52_1/06_nelson.pdf
.

  
23
  
young wards still wear prison stripes
: Richard Ross, “Juvenile in Justice,”
Bokeh
, Juvenile Justice Information Exchange,
bokeh.jjie.org/hm-age-caldwell-southwest-idaho-juvenile-detention-center-id/
.

  
28
  
“large-muscle exercise”
: After the practice of caging youth was halted, a warden reportedly told visitors that he planned to bring in dogs from the local SPCA to fill the cages previously inhabited by children. The boys would rehabilitate themselves by training the dogs, and the institution, perhaps, would rehabilitate its public image in the process. Kevin Feeney, “Experiencing Preston Youth Prison,” Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, June 17, 2009,
ellabakercenter.org/blog/2009/06/experiencing-preston-youth-prison
.

  
29
  
A national survey
: Andrea J. Sedlak and Karla S. McPherson, “Conditions of Confinement: Findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement,”
Juvenile Justice Bulletin
, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, May 2010,
syrp.org/images/OJJDP%20Conditions%20of%20Confinement.pdf
.

  
30
  
“experience violence, theft and assault”
: Andrea J. Sedlak, Karla S. McPherson, and Monica Basena, “Nature and Risk of Victimization: Findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Treatment,”
Juvenile Justice Bulletin
, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, June 2013,
www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/240703.pdf
.

  
30
  
Nearly half of those surveyed had their property stolen
: See Chapters 5 and 6 for more on physical and sexual abuse, respectively, in juvenile facilities.

  
30
  
a guard was the perpetrator
: Sedlak, McPherson, and Basena, “Nature and Risk of Victimization.”

  
30
  
One in ten youths nationwide had suffered sexual assault
: Allan J. Beck, Paige M. Harrison, and Paul Guerino, “Special Report: Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008–2009,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, January 2010,
www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/svjfry09.pdf
.

  
30
  
Violent Crime Index offenses
: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Reducing Youth Incarceration in the United States,” Kids Count Data Snapshot, February 2013, p. 2,
www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Initiatives/KIDS%20COUNT/R/ReducingYouthIncarcerationSnapshot/DataSnapshotYouthIncarceration.pdf
.

  
31
  
A number of young people have died
: Nancy Lewis, “Another State Bans Prone Restraints,”
Youth Today
, August 26, 2008,
www.youthtoday.org/view_article.cfm?article_id=2254
.