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.
“Why should people be cut off from the logic of having a separate youth justice system—that people change, that people grow, that people should not be defined by an act—because they are a day over 18? A new Illinois reform (House Bill 531), signed into law this month by Governor J.B. Pritzker, defies the usual pattern that in the United States even bold youth justice reforms stop at the age of majority, if not earlier.“
The Appeal Political Report
April 25, 2019
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