New report explains how many system-involved youth are confined, where they are held, under what conditions, and for what offenses.
August 25, 2025
A new Prison Policy Initiative report provides the most up-to-date picture of how many youth are detained and committed in the U.S., highlighting the persistent overincarceration of Black and Indigenous youth in a system that, in recent decades, has made great strides in reducing youth confinement overall. Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2025 explores the conditions facing 31,900 kids today — most of whom are held in youth prisons and jails — and offers data on youth confinement by offense type in all 50 states.
Over the past 25 years, the number of youth in confinement in the U.S. has fallen by more than 70 percent — impressive progress compared to the adult criminal legal system, whose populations have changed very little overall in that same period. Nevertheless, the U.S. still confines youth at a rate more than twice the global average, and its juvenile legal system mirrors the adult system in many alarming ways:
Severe racial disparities. 47% of boys and 39% of girls in juvenile facilities are Black — a level of disparity that has actually worsened in recent years. And even excluding youth held in Indian country facilities, Indigenous children make up 3% of girls and 2% of boys in juvenile facilities, despite comprising less than 1% of all youth nationally.
Large numbers of youth held pretrial or for minor offenses. Nearly 9,000 youth today are locked up before they’ve had a trial, and thousands are in detention for minor, low-level offenses. Select states — such as Indiana, which accounts for almost one-quarter of kids locked up for running away; and Texas and California, which hold 26% of kids confined for technical violations of parole — contribute heavily to this problem.
Prison-like conditions. While the number of kids in large facilities (holding 100 youth or more) has fallen steeply in the last few years, nearly 4 out of every 5 confined kids are held in youth or adult prisons and jails — an increase since 2017, when 65% of confined youth were held in such places.
“States have made astonishing progress in the last 25 years in reducing youth incarceration, but the fact remains that prisons and jails are not places for kids,” said report author Brian Nam-Sonenstein. “Confinement is still a traumatizing experience for youth — most of whom already have histories of trauma — and one that leaves them worse off than before their incarceration.”
Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie 2025 includes a first-of-its-kind, 50-state table showing the number of youth confined for various types of offenses, shining particular light on “status offenses” (behaviors that are not law violations for adults). Other key features of the report include:
Sidebars breaking down the different types of youth confinement facilities, and terminology around youth incarceration that differs from the adult system;
Infographics “zooming in” on certain slices of the pie, such as youth held for low-level offenses and youth in highly restrictive facilities;
A section highlighting some of the reforms that have led to a more than 70% drop in confined youth populations, and noting how these same reforms could be applied to the adult criminal legal system.
“Disturbingly, some states today are threatening to double down on failed policies that created the youth confinement crisis in the first place,” Nam-Sonenstein said. “Seeing the full picture of this system should remove any doubt that it casts far too wide a net, one that disproportionately ensnares Black and brown youth. State policymakers would do well to emulate the reforms that have shrunk this system and apply these lessons to adult prisons and jails.”
A new study analyzing a national survey of youth in custody reveals stark disparities in rates of staff physical assault among Black and neurodivergent youth.
Even though the rate of youth incarceration is more than three times lower than it was twenty years ago, youth of color and youth with disabilities are still overrepresented in custody — and these disparities are getting worse.1
These children were already among the most vulnerable to involvement in the juvenile legal system, but as the system decarcerates, their vulnerability is compounded by the fact that they are also among the most likely to suffer abuse while confined, including being violently victimized by adults.
New research underscores the extent to which staff violence against incarcerated neurodivergent youth of color is substantially worse than it is for white neurotypical youth.2 Brianna Suslovic and her colleagues at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, identified significant disparities in the likelihood of staff physical assault between confined youth of different racial identities, and between neurodivergent and neurotypical incarcerated youth. They found that the odds of Black youth reporting staff physical assault are 79% higher than the odds of white youth reporting assault, and the odds of neurodivergent youth reporting staff assault are 59% higher than the odds of neurotypical youth reporting assault. Even more alarmingly, for neurodivergent youth of color, the odds of reporting staff physical assault are more than twice the odds of their white, neurotypical peers.
These findings, forthcoming in the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, are based on data collected by the federal government in the 2018 National Survey of Youth in Custody. Suslovic and her co-authors have made a useful contribution to existing research because they use self-reported data to examine how structural forces and marginalization — in this case, racism and ableism — shape experiences of youth confinement. The evidence they present underscores the need to keep those at the highest risk of abuse at the forefront of decarceration efforts, and to ensure they don’t enter youth jails and prisons in the first place.
Methodology
The underlying data in the study are from the 2018 National Survey of Youth in Custody, a nationally representative survey of 6,910 youth in 332 publicly- and privately-operated facilities that house adjudicated3 youth across the country.4 The survey is intended to gather data on the incidence and prevalence of sexual assault in juvenile facilities under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA). Data are self-reported by youth participants, and the survey collects information on the racial identity, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, and diagnoses of several mental health and developmental disorders.
The researchers used survey data to identify respondents who reported any diagnosis by a doctor, counselor, or other professional of ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, a learning disability, Autism, or Asperger’s Syndrome, which the researchers used to categorize participants as “neurodivergent.”5 Suslovic and her colleagues estimated the prevalence of staff physical assault of neurodivergent and neurotypical — or non-neurodivergent — youth across racial categories based on the response to the survey question that asked youth to report if they had ever been “kicked, punched, hit, and otherwise physically assaulted” by facility staff. Given the limited information on physical assault by facility staff in juvenile facilities,6 the researchers rely on youth reporting assault as a proxy for the frequency of assaults in youth confinement. This requires an assumption that the likelihood of confidentially reporting an assault is generally consistent across demographic categories in the survey. The researchers also controlled for a number of variables that may be associated with increased risk of victimization including history of prior physical abuse, assignment of a caseworker or social worker, age, education level, gender identity, and sexual orientation.7
There are some inherent limitations to this study. First, the National Survey of Youth in Custody relies on self-reported data, which is susceptible to over- and under-reporting, but is generally found to provide accurate estimates.8 Second, the researchers’ definition of “neurodivergence” may differ from other definitions, as there is no general consensus in the literature about the specific diagnoses and conditions of neurodivergence. Third, the racial, ethnic, and gender identities of youth were limited to the categories presented in the administered survey, which therefore limits responses to a set number of possibilities of identity categories for race, ethnicity, and gender.9
Confined youth of color and neurodivergent youth disproportionately experience violence at the hands of facility staff
The study finds that children of color and neurodivergent children are disproportionately confined in juvenile facilities, and that neurodivergent children of color in particular are more likely to report being physically assaulted by staff than white, neurotypical children.
Among white, Black, and Hispanic confined youth, those identified as neurodivergent — meaning they’ve ever been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, a learning disability, Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome — are more likely to have been physically assaulted by staff, based on self-reporting in the 2018 National Survey of Youth in Custody. Source: Suslovic, B., Shankar, S., & Gottlieb, A. (2025). Race/Ethnicity, Neurodivergence, and Odds of Staff Physical Assault in Youth Carceral Settings. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research. https://doi.org/10.1086/734616.
Overall, more than 1 in 10 incarcerated youth report being assaulted by staff. However, among neurodivergent confined youth, a greater proportion (15%) reported being assaulted by staff. In fact, the odds of neurodivergent youth reporting violent victimization by staff were 59% higher than the odds of their neurotypical peers. In the analysis across race, the researchers found that Black youth have odds of reporting staff physical assault that are 79% higher than white youth, with almost 1 in every 6 Black youth reporting assault, compared to 1 in 9 white youth.
The researchers also found that across almost all racial categories, staff physical assault is more prevalent among neurodivergent youth.10Neurodivergent youth of color experience a distressing 120% higher odds of reporting being assaulted by staff than their white, neurotypical peers. This is particularly alarming, as it indicates the extent to which the children most vulnerable to involvement in the juvenile system are made additionally vulnerable to violence at the hands of adults in power.
Despite great strides in youth decarceration, longstanding disparities in confinement are getting worse
The great strides made in youth decarceration over the past twenty years have not been evenly distributed. People of color and those with disabilities, who have often been primary targets for surveillance, policing, and incarceration,11 still represent a greater portion of the dwindling confined youth population than their white and neurotypical peers. In fact, their overrepresentation in the system is growing, and they continue to face the very kinds of abuses that have motivated decarceration of youth jails and prisons in the first place.
The conditions in youth jails and prisons — which can include solitary confinement, physical abuse, sexual abuse, a lack of programming and services, and excessive use of force — make juvenile confinement particularly dangerous for youth with disabilities, and can exacerbate mental and behavioral health concerns.12 Overall, confined youth face exceptional risk of victimization by facility staff: systemic maltreatment — including physical abuse and excessive use of force by staff — has been reported in juvenile facilities in 29 states since 2000, and a 2010 survey found 22% of confined youth reported that they were afraid that a staff member will physically attack them.13
The data from this newest study support these concerning trends, further quantifying the overrepresentation of youth of color and neurodivergent youth in confinement, and characterizing their mistreatment in a shrinking system.
Youth with disabilities are disproportionately locked up
More than two-thirds of confined youth met the study’s criteria for neurodivergence, which the researchers defined as any diagnosis by a doctor, counselor, or other professional of ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, a learning disability, Autism, or Asperger’s Syndrome. The prevalence of many of these diagnoses is much higher among children in custody than in the national youth population:14
In addition, more than half (55%) of neurodivergent confined youth were Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.
While youth with disabilities represent 17% of national K-12 enrollment, they represent almost one quarter (24%) of confined youth.15 Children with disabilities face some of the highest rates of arrest in schools, in part because police are often called to respond to youth who have challenges with processing emotions and information, communication, and disability-related behaviors. Youth of color with disabilities are arrested at even higher rates in schools, with Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander boys and Black boys with disabilities facing rates four to six times the average arrest rate.16
Racial disparities are increasing in youth confinement
Racial disparities have long been a feature of youth incarceration, and they’re only getting worse. In 2003, Black youth accounted for 38% of youth detained or committed, and in 2023, this increased to over 46%. In addition, youth of more than one race accounted for only 1% of confined youth in 2006 (the first year juvenile data included that race category), and that proportion has more than doubled as of 2023.
Some of these disparities can be traced back to differences in the policing of kids of different races and ethnicities. As is the case with Black adults, Black children are particularly targeted with overcharging and harsher treatment, making them far more likely to be incarcerated than white children. Black children, and especially Black girls, are also subject to an added burden of adultification: when a child is perceived as older, more culpable, and more responsible than their peers. Similar to the racist “super predator” myth that was used to rationalize harsh punishments in the 1990s by portraying Black youth as more violent and unruly than their white peers, adultification leads to harsher consequences within the juvenile legal system.
Conclusion
The findings from Brianna Suslovic and her colleagues represent important contributions to the existing research, highlighting how some of the most vulnerable children are funneled into the juvenile legal system, where they face a number of dangers, including physical assault by staff.
Violent victimization is the product of several factors in youth confinement. Almost one-third of the study sample reported physical abuse by an adult prior to confinement, and we know that prior victimization is a strong indicator of subsequent victimization while in custody. Research also shows that the quality of relationships with facility staff can influence the likelihood of victimization — and other positive and negative outcomes for incarcerated youth and adults — and the vast majority (89%) of confined youth reported that they were assigned a case manager or counselor. Educational access and engagement have been identified as protective factors against maltreatment for children as well. Despite evidence that people who achieve higher levels of education while incarcerated are more likely to experience positive outcomes after release, less than one-third of confined youth have completed high school, even though more than 60% of confined youth are over 17 years old.17 Many of the same factors that make children more vulnerable to criminal legal system involvement also make them more vulnerable to suffering abuse while confined, and this study calls particular attention to some of the youth most disproportionately at risk of violent victimization by adults.
While the number of confined youth has been declining for years, the confined population still reflects the racist and ableist trends of the nation’s criminal legal system: children with histories of abuse, lower education levels, learning disabilities, cognitive disorders, disabilities, and children of color are disproportionately locked up. Those are the children who remain in juvenile facilities where they are at heightened risk of physical assault at the hands of the people charged with their safety and wellbeing. Given the pronounced failure of youth incarceration to significantly reduce “delinquent” behaviors and the dangers they experience behind bars, the findings from this recent study signal a need to reevaluate our nation’s use of incarceration for children.
As explained in detail in the Methodology section of this briefing, the study authors define “neurodivergent” as any diagnosis by a doctor, counselor, or other professional of ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, a learning disability, Autism, or Asperger’s Syndrome. “Neurotypical” youth are youth who report no history of any of those diagnoses. The study authors also analyzed the findings by race and ethnicity: white, Black, Hispanic, other races (including Asian American and Indigenous), and two or more races. For some findings, they report the differences between white youth and youth of color (defined as all non-white race and ethnicity categories). ↩
Because this survey focuses on facilities holding adjudicated youth (or youth whom the juvenile court has determined have committed the act with which they are charged) it does not necessarily reflect the experience of youth awaiting adjudication, such as those in pretrial juvenile detention. ↩
The researchers were only able to use the survey results from 5,718 youth (83%) that responded to the necessary questions for their analysis. ↩
Prior to the administration of the National Survey of Youth in Custody, the newest iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM-5, was published in 2013. The DSM-5 is the main guide for mental health and brain-related conditions and disorders. In that iteration of the reference book, “Autism” and “Asperger’s Syndrome” were consolidated into “Autism spectrum disorder” to encompass the wide range of symptoms and the severity of those symptoms. ↩
Unlike the reports about sexual victimization of youth in confinement that come from the same dataset (the National Survey of Youth in Custody) there are no reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reporting on the prevalence of substantiated vs. reported incidents of physical assault by staff. ↩
Sexual and gender minority youth are at elevated risk for staff sexual victimization while in custody, although there is little evidence regarding the prevalence of staff physical assault across any demographic. ↩
The survey may not capture all trans or gender nonconforming youth, as they may have identified as “male” or “female,” leaving the researchers no ability to delineate cisgender and transgender youth. ↩
Rates of reporting staff physical assault are higher among neurotypical youth for only one racial category: youth of more than one race. ↩
While the study included diagnoses of dyslexia in the definition of neurodivergent, there is little consensus on the national prevalence of dyslexia to compare the findings to outside of the confinement setting. ↩
The 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection from the U.S. Department of Education defines disability based on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and includes autism, hearing and visual impairments, intellectual disability, severe orthopedic impairment, specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairment, and traumatic brain injuries.
This estimate of 24% is likely an underestimate of the actual proportion of confined children with disabilities: somesourcesreport that up to 70% of confined youth have disabilities (the definitions of disabilities frequently vary between studies). ↩
While Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and Black girls face the highest arrest rates among girls with disabilities, arrest rates across all races are highest for boys and nearly 85% of confined youth are boys. ↩
With every sheriff’s office, department of corrections, district attorney, and police department armed with its own media relations team, the news cycle is all too often stacked toward the status quo when it comes to criminal legal system issues. How can advocates for system reform have their voices amplified — and their priority issues covered — without overworking themselves to get the media’s attention? And how can advocates frame issues in ways that resonate with journalists?
On September 18th, the Prison Policy Initiative and the Center for Just Journalism hosted a webinar to help advocacy organizations home their media strategies and get attention on critical issues. Panelists Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative and Hannah Riley of the Center for Just Journalism provided guidance on how small organizations can make the most of their limited resources and staff capacity. They covered:
The lay of the contemporary news media landscape and basic tips for interacting with journalists;
The strategic benefits of building relationships with reporters, and how advocates should select reporters to reach out to;
How to have informal conversations with the media that can influence the news cycle, as well as write formal pitches that can lead to news clippings.
One out of every three people behind bars is being held in a local jail, yet the 3,000+ sheriffs that control them operate with little to no oversight — and the consequences are deadly. Hundreds of people, many of whom are held pretrial and have not been convicted of a crime, die each year in local jails from suicide, overdoses, violence, and neglect.
Safety Bound, an organization that works to reimagine the role of sheriffs, has created a policy platform with seven demands that advocates can use to curb the unchecked power of sheriffs, reduce jail populations, and improve conditions inside these facilities. We helped to support this effort by providing insights and research on the health harms of incarceration and ways communities can avoid costly and ineffective jail construction projects.
The seven demands are listed below, and are explained in more depth on Safety Bound’s website.
Towards Accountability — Sheriffs should improve jail operations and conditions to prevent injuries and deaths.
People in jails have high rates of mental illness, chronic health conditions, and substance use, which jails are not equipped to provide care for.
Towards Freedom — Sheriffs should reduce jail populations and oppose jail expansions
Investing in jail construction is not a solution to social problems but rather doubles down on old policies that caused these problems to begin with.
Towards Immigrant Justice — Sheriffs should end all voluntary cooperation with any and all immigration enforcement.
Local jails play an important role in enabling federal agencies like ICE and the U.S. Marshals to detain people for immigration reasons.
Traffic stops are not only the most common type of police-initiated contact, but are common sites of police violence, impacting Black drivers more than any other racial group.
Towards Health — Sheriffs should advocate for alternative emergency response for mental health and substance use crises.
Despite how sheriffs repackage incarceration as care to justify jail expansion or budget increases, jails are not a substitute for treatment. A better solution is community-based support systems that address challenges before they become crises that result in incarceration.
Towards Democracy — Sheriffs should not take campaign donations from jail contractors.
Nationwide, sheriffs have received countless dollars in campaign donations from security and investigative companies, construction firms, medical services providers, telecom and tech companies, bail bonding companies, and even apparel and uniform manufacturers.
Towards Election Integrity — Sheriffs should act to protect election officials and voters from threats and violence that undermine the right to vote.
Elected officials, particularly at the local and state level, significantly shape the criminal legal system and elections are an important tool in the fight against mass incarceration.
The organization is also hosting a webinar on Thursday, August 14th, to explore each demand in depth. The organization’s partners — including our Policy & Advocacy team — will discuss how we can build a movement rooted in care and accountability.
Last month, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at forcibly locking unhoused people experiencing mental health crises or substance use disorder in involuntary commitment in state psychiatric hospitals.1 Here’s the issue with that measure: it is nothing more than an attempt to disguise criminalization as care.
The order directs the federal government to find ways to encourage and empower states to force unhoused people experiencing mental health or substance use issues into involuntary commitment facilities.
These state psychiatric hospitals aren’t typically run by departments of correction, but they are in reality much like prisons. At least 38 states also allow involuntary commitment for substance use disorder treatment, and evidence suggests that these supposed “treatment facilities” are not effective. Notably, it can be extremely difficult for these “forensic patients” to be released as they may remain hospitalized for decades or for life.
Involuntary commitment is not only legally and ethically dubious, but it also fails to deliver on the very objectives that justified its creation.
Contradicting cuts
Notably, in the first five months of his second term, Trump has gutted social programs that have been proven to reduce crime and keep people off the street.
First, the administration slashed $11 billion from addiction and mental health programs, a move that will lead to increasing prison and jail populations. Then, it targeted Housing First programs, a method that has been proven effective at getting and keeping people off the street, by giving them access to housing without conditions. And, last month, Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” came with an ugly reality: Steep cuts to Medicaid that will leave 10 million people uninsured, making it nearly impossible for them to access mental health care or substance abuse treatment.
With the safety net shredded, what will happen to the people who desperately need care? In many cases, they’ll be put straight into actual prisons and jails, which are never appropriate places for treatment.
Prisons and jails are often viewed as de facto mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Rates of mental illness are exceptionally high among incarcerated people, and these facilities fail to meet the demand for help. More than half of the people in state prison reported having a mental health problem, yet only 26% received professional help since entering prison.
Based on 2019 data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) from SAMHSA, approximately 8% of people over the age of 12 met the criteria for a substance use disorder, and 41% of people who had been arrested in the last year met the criteria for a substance use disorder. In 2016 (the most recent year for which the Bureau of Justice Statistics published national prison data), 47% of people in state and federal prisons met the criteria for a substance use disorder in the 12 months prior to their most recent prison admission.
Not only are prisons and jails unable to treat mental health problems, but they can also create them. Incarceration itself is traumatizing and can inflict serious mental damage on people. Violence behind bars is inescapable and can result in post-traumatic stress symptoms, like anxiety, depression, avoidance, hypersensitivity, hypervigilance, suicidality, flashbacks, and difficulty with emotional regulation.
Prisons and jails are not treatment centers for substance use disorders, either. In fact, these facilities punish drug use far more than they treat it. People who have been arrested or incarcerated have higher rates of substance use disorder than the general population. And, disturbingly, only 1 in 10 people in state prisons with substance use disorders received treatment.
Jails, which tend to have even fewer resources, are also not suited to offer care. The most effective treatment options are the least accessible for people with opioid use disorder: Just 19% of jails initiate medication-assisted treatment for people with opioid use disorder.
Behind bars, people don’t have access to the care they need – and upon release, they’re often left worse off than before incarceration. Formerly incarcerated people are almost 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general public. And, being homeless makes formerly incarcerated people more likely to be arrested and incarcerated again, creating a revolving door.
Attacks on people experiencing homelessness
The reality is that there is an inextricable link between housing, mental illness, drug use, and criminalization. Yes, people experiencing these vulnerable situations often need care — but forcibly hospitalizing them is not the solution.
Instead, the U.S. must embrace Housing First. This method offers housing with no strings attached. It recognizes housing as the first step in responding to homelessness, rather than something to work toward. It also does more than simply put a roof over people’s heads; it gives people the space and stability necessary to receive care, escape crises, and improve their quality of life. Research shows that this approach keeps people housed and improves attitudes and outlook on life.
Conclusion
In the last year, there have been rampant attacks on people experiencing homelessness – and this executive order is the latest example. It’s a bad move that will result in far more people locked up simply because they’re experiencing homelessness, mental health crises, or substance use issues. Gutting proven solutions that make communities safer — like community-based care, Housing First, and harm-reduction efforts — seems to be a pattern with the administration.
The good news is that state and local governments don’t have to help this misguided effort. The federal government will certainly dangle funding to entice them to implement these policies, but they have the ability to say no. If the money comes with these types of strings attached, it isn’t worth the cost.
Footnotes
Pres. Trump’s executive order uses the term “civil commitment.” However, for many the term “civil commitment” refers to the involuntary commitment of people convicted of sex-related crimes after completing their prison sentences. For clarity, in this piece we will be using the term “involuntary commitment” to refer to the President’s proposed actions. ↩
