Each year approximately 250,000 youth are prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system.
The juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes fell 48% between 1994 and 2003.
The juvenile arrest rate for motor vehicle theft fell 62% between 1990-2003.
Only 51% of all black students and 52% of all Hispanic students graduate high school, and only 20% of all black students and 16% of all Hispanic students leave high school college-ready.
Juveniles who have been detained, are four to eight times more likely to die violently than the general population.
Approximately 2/3 of males and ¾ of females in Chicago’s Juvenile Detention Facility meet the diagnostic criteria for one or more psychiatric disorder.
Minority youth are 1.4 times more likely to be sentenced to the California Youth Authority by adult courts than are similarly offending white youth.
The California Youth Authority spends an average of 60,000 per year on each youth in its institutions and camps.
African-American (43%) and Latino (37%) youth are more likely than White youth (26%) to receive a sentence of incarceration, as opposed to a split sentence or probation.
Suicide within juvenile detention and correctional facilities is more than 4 times greater than in the general population.
There are approximately 27,000 youth in secure detention institutions on any given day, an increase of almost 100 % since 1985.
More than 1/3 of the youth in detention are there for status offenses and various technical violations of probation and other rules.
A 2004 congressional report found that in 33 states, youth with mental illness are held in detention centers without any charges.
For those convicted of drug offenses, a lower percentage of African-American youth (37%) received probation than White youth (44%) or Latino youth (53%).
46 states authorize or require juvenile court judges to waive jurisdiction over individual cases involving minors, so as to allow prosecution in adult criminal courts.
34 states have enacted "once an adult, always an adult" statues, meaning that a youth who is convicted in adult court will typically remain in adult court, regardless of the offense.
Suicide within juvenile detention and correctional facilities is more than 4 times greater than in the general population.
