Nationally, on any given night, approximately 81,000 youth are confined to juvenile facilities and 10,000 children are held in adult jails and prisons. Approximately 1 in 10 young male high school dropouts is incarcerated or in juvenile detention. For African Americans, that number is 1 in 4. Research shows that just over two million youth under the age of 18 were arrested in 2008. Of these two million, about 95 percent had not been accused of violent crimes. In 2010, of the nearly 100,000 youth under the age of 18 who were serving time in a juvenile residential placement facility, 26 percent had been convicted of property crimes only, such as burglary, arson, or theft. Access to education both stems the tide of incarceration and improves inmates chances of re-acclimating to society after their release.
“Stunning annual crime statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) show that between 2013 and 2018 (the most recent year for which complete data is available), at least 30,467 children under the age of 10 were arrested in the United States. And the numbers skyrocket for children between the ages of 10 to 12 with 266,321 arrested during the same six-year time span, according to the data.“
ABC News
October 1, 2019
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