Death of a juvenile in custody is relatively rare. In 1994 (the most recent year for which data are available), 45 juveniles died while in the legal custody of a juvenile facility. In 1992, 40 juveniles died while in custody. The majority of deaths in both years resulted from suicide.

OJJDP realizes these data on deaths in custody are outdated, but with the end of the CIC Census, there was no longer a mechanism for collecting national data on such events. The CJRP was designed solely to collect indepth information on the juvenile population in custody as of the census date; the only facility-level information collected by the CJRP is the total population and some description of the facility type. To fill the resulting gap in information, OJJDP inserted several questions about deaths of juveniles in custody into the new Juvenile Residential Facility Census described Upcoming Surveys. The data collected by the new Facility Census should be comparable to data collected previously in the CIC Census, allowing OJJDP to provide trend data in future annual reports. OJJDP anticipates fielding the new Facility Census in October 2000 and making the data from it available in 2001. OJJDP also is supporting a field-initiated research project that will examine juvenile suicide in confinement by surveying residential facilities around the Nation. The research will be conducted by the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives in Alexandria, VA.

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OJJDP Annual Report 1998	October 1999