Conditions of Confinement

In the United States, approximately 24,000 youth are locked up in secure detention on any given day. In many cases, these youth spend time in facilities where they are subject to physical and emotional abuse that threatens not only their immediate safety, but their long-term well-being. Media coverage and lawsuits have highlighted ergregious abuses in facilities throughout the country. In response, a number of organizations and projects such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, work to provide suggestions on how to reform conditions of confinement. These resources identify problems with conditions of confinement in secure detention facilities and present strategies for improvement.

CCLP Publications

• An Overview of the JDAI Facility Site Assessment Process: Guidelines for Planning, Conducting and Reporting [Download]
  To ensure a level of protection for detained youth and provide necessary feedback for officials responsible for the operation of juvenile detention facilities, staff of the Youth Law Center and the Center for Children’s Law and Policy have developed an extensive set of materials to facilitate a facility site assessment. This overview document provides a summary of the entire facility site assessment process from start to finish.

• JDAI Standards [Download]
  This document contains the extensive set of standards contained in the JDAI Facility Site Assessment Instrument. The document is commonly referred to as both the “standards” and the “instrument.”

• JDAI "How To" Tools [Download]
  This document contains a set of “How To” documents that provide suggestions for assessing each major issue area involved in a facility assessment.
  
  
• Fact Sheet: Understanding the OJJDP Survey of Conditions of Confinement in Juvenile Facilities [Download]
  In May 2010, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) published findings from a 2003 survey of 7,073 youth in custody regarding conditions of confinement in detention centers, corrections facilities, camps, community based facilities, and residential treatment centers throughout the country. This fact sheet outlines the study’s key findings and methodology.
  
  
• Fact Sheet: Understanding the BJS Study of Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Faciltiies [Download]
  In January 2010, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) published a special report entitled Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09. BJS surveyed 9,198 youth in 195 juvenile confinement facilities across the country to determine the prevalence of sexual victimization. This fact sheet outlines the study’s key findings and methodology.
  
  
• Fact Sheet: Independent Monitoring Systems for Juvenile Facilities [Download]
  Youth who are harmed in juvenile facilities should have a reliable and safe place to turn to report physical and sexual abuse, other staff misconduct or lack of care they need. In order for youth to step forward, though, they must also trust the investigatory process and feel safe from retaliation by facility staff and other youth. Independent monitoring systems – programs for receiving and investigating complaints from youth that are separate from an agency’s internal grievance mechanism – address that need by introducing independent eyes and ears in secure facilities. This fact sheet outlines best practices common to effective independent monitoring systems for juvenile facilities and provides examples of systems currently serving youth in facilities.
  
  
• The Use of Pepper Spray in Texas Youth Commission Facilities [Download first letter] [Download second letter]
  In these letters from 2007, Senior Staff Attorney Dana Shoenberg and Executive Director Mark Soler analyze the Texas Youth Commission's policies on use of force and the use of OC spray (pepper spray). The letters analyze applicable legal and professional standards with respect to the use of OC spray, outline scientific research on and the potential dangers of OC spray, and propose changes to the TYC policies based on that information.
  

CCLP Presentations

• The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and Strategies for Keeping Youth Safe in Juvenile Justice Facilities [Download]
  In February 2010, Senior Staff Attorney Dana Shoenberg gave a presentation to administrators at the Maryland Department of Juvenile Justice. In that presentation, she explained PREA and the status of the PREA standards at that point in time, discussed the dynamics of juvenile facility sexual misconduct and common themes in facilities with those problems, and examined aspects of facility operations through a sexual misconduct prevention lens.

• Conditions of Confinement:  Keeping Youth Safe in Juvenile Justice Facilities [Download]
  In December 2008, Senior Staff Attorney Dana Shoenberg gave a presentation on sexual misconduct in juvenile facilities at a conference hosted by the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. She highlighted aspects of facility conditions important to keeping youth safe from sexual misconduct and harassment. More information on the conference, entitled Behind Closed Doors: Preventing, Responding to, Investigating and Prosecuting Sexual abuse in Juvenile Justice Facilities, can be found by following this link.

Other Resources

• Improving Conditions of Confinement in Secure Juvenile Detention Centers [Download]
  This JDAI Pathways report provides strategies to assess and improve conditions in juvenile detention facilities, based on the initiative's experience with detention reform.

• Youth Law Center [link]
  The Youth Law Center litigates on behalf of children in the nation's foster care and juvenile justice systems, and the public interest law firm has pursued a number of cases addressing conditions of confinement. To browse their work, click the link above and select "Conditions of Confinement" and "Crowding/Detention Practices" from the Topics menu at left.

• United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section [link]
  The Special Litigation Section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division has investigated conditions of confinement in more than 100 juvenile facilities nationwide. Their website contains a list of complaints, briefs, settlements, court decisions, and other resources from those efforts.
  
  
• Conditions of Confinement: Findings from the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement [Download]
  In May 2010, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention released a bulletin on conditions of confinement for youth in residential programs. The report, which is based on the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement, includes statistics on grievance procedures, disciplinary practices, use of restraints, and other topics.

• Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-2009 [Download]
  In January 2009, the Office of Justice Program's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) published a report based on the National Survey of Youth in Custody. The study indicated that more than 1 in 10 youth in state juvenile facilities and large local facilities reported experiencing at least one incident of sexual victimization by staff or youth in the previous 12 months.

• Posttraumatic Stress as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Trauma and Mental Health Problems Among Juvenile Delinquents [Download]
  This October 2009 study from the Journal of Youth and Adolescence investigated the relationship between trauma exposure, post-traumatic stress disorder, and mental health problems among a sample youth in juvenile corrections, finding that females scored higher than males on measures of exposure to trauma and symptoms of PTSD.

• Conditions of Confinement: Juvenile Detention and Corrections Facilities: Research Report [link]
  This report, prepared in 1994 for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, remains the most comprehensive study of detention conditions in the United States to date.