Custody Data (1997-Present)

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Serving Children, Families, and Communities

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Q:	How did the security status of juveniles in residential placement vary by their placement status in 1997?
A:	Detained juveniles were more likely than other juveniles to be held in a locked facility. There was also variation in the security status of juveniles in residential placement across facility types.

Security status of juveniles in residential placement by placement status, 1997

Placement status	All facilities				Public facilities				Private facilities
Placement status	Staff secure		Locked		Staff secure		Locked		Staff secure		Locked

Total	29	%	71	%	14	%	86	%	70	%	30	%
Diversion agreement not to adjudicate	67		33		22		78		87		14
Detained, juvenile court	10		90		3		97		57		43
Detained, transfer	2		98		0		100		*		*
Committed, juvenile court	37		63		19		81		71		29
Convicted, criminal court	10		90		4		96		67		33

* Too few to obtain a reliable percentage.

Notes: Total includes 360 juveniles (less than 0.5%) whose placement status was reported as "other." Of these, 20% were juveniles held pending deportation or transfer to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Another 20% were held for diagnostic evaluation.

To protect the confidentiality of juvenile residents all published data from the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP) are rounded to the nearest multiple of three. Each cell is rounded independently, without consideration as to row or column totals. As a result, in many tables, the internal cells do not add to the marginal totals. Rates and percentages presented from CJRP are also based on rounded totals. More information on this rounding rule is available on the CJRP Databook Web site.

[ Excel file ]

Juvenile residential placement facilities vary in their degree of security. The use of fences, walls, and surveillance equipment is increasingly common in juvenile facilities, although security hardware in juvenile facilities is generally not as elaborate as that found in adult jails and prisons. In fact, national accreditation standards for juvenile facilities express a preference for relying on staff, rather than on hardware to provide security. The guiding principle is to house juvenile offenders in the "least restrictive placement alternative." Staff security measures include perimeter checks, periodically taking counts of the youth in custody, using classification and separation procedures, and maintaining an adequate ratio of security staff to juveniles.
For each juvenile in residential placement, the Census of Juveniles Residential Placement asked respondents about the "locked doors and/or gates [that] confined THIS young person within the facility and its grounds during the afterschool, daytime hours on October 29, 1997."
Overall, juveniles in residential placement under diversion agreements were more likely to be housed in a staff secure setting (67%) than a locked setting (33%). For all other placement status categories, juveniles were more likely to be in a locked setting than a staff secure setting. Virtually all of the detained transfers were held under locked arrangements (98%). Juveniles committed to residential placement by juvenile court were more likely to be in a locked than staff secure setting but the proportion held in locked settings was substantially lower (63%) than those connected in criminal count (90%).
Across all placement status categories, juveniles held in public facilities were more likely to be in a locked environment than were juveniles in private facilities. For example, 81% of juveniles committed to public facilities by juvenile courts were in locked settings compared with 29% of those committed to private facilities.

Internet citation: OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. Online. Available: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/ojstatbb/corrections/qa08515.asp?qaDate=20010228. Released on February 28, 2001.

Adapted from Sickmund, M. (2000). Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement 1997. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice.

Data Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement 1997 [machine-readable data files]. Washington, D.C.: OJJDP.