Resources

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion’s Chang­ing Course in Youth Deten­tion: Revers­ing Widen­ing Gaps by Race and Place expos­es the large and widen­ing gaps in youth deten­tion by race and place. The report com­pris­es three years of research from the Foun­da­tion and tracks the effects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic on juve­nile jus­tice systems. Charts and analy­sis show that, depend­ing on their race and the region and juris­dic­tion in which they reside, young peo­ple in the Unit­ed States live in dif­fer­ent real­i­ties when it comes to the odds of being detained. The dis­pro­por­tion­ate use of deten­tion for Black youth — already dis­tress­ing­ly high before the pan­dem­ic — has increased sub­stan­tial­ly. Also, over that three-year peri­od, local and region­al dif­fer­ences in the use of deten­tion have increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly, a reminder that most deci­sions about youth deten­tion are made locally.