Public Safety Performance Project

As COVID-19 spreads among youth and staff in juvenile correctional facilities, some states are moving to reduce confined populations. Although motivated by urgent health concerns, many of these policies are consistent with public safety research and reflect a continuing effort by state policymakers to decrease both incarceration and crime.

A growing body of research demonstrates that for many juvenile offenders, lengthy out-of-home placements in secure corrections or other residential facilities fail to produce better outcomes than alternative sanctions.

Since 2012, a growing number of states have used data and research to inform sweeping policy changes that aim to improve juvenile justice systems. Their efforts include prioritizing use of detention and out-of-home placement for youth who present the greatest public safety risk, limiting the length of their confinement, reinvesting taxpayer savings to expand access to evidence-based services, and supporting community-based interventions for lower-level offenses.

Juveniles in the U.S. are much less likely to be arrested for violent crime and committed to state custody than they were 15 years ago. From 2001 to 2014, the juvenile violent crime arrest rate fell 46 percent and, over roughly the same period, the rate at which youths were sent to state-funded facilities dropped 53 percent.