Data for this report were collected in 1979 by the U.S. Census Bureau with the support of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The report is popularly known as 'Children in Custody' (CIC). The CIC survey form requests data from facility administrators on the number of youth admitted to these facilities, their characteristics, a 1-day count of inmates, and programmatic facts about each facility. The CIC data examined in this study are admissions rates to juvenile correctional facilities, lengths of confinement, expenditures, and selected conditions of confinement in juvenile correctional facilities. A comparative analysis of the data reveals glaring differences in juvenile correctional practices among the States, notably in the areas of admission rates, lengths of confinement, confinement of youth in adult facilities, expenditures per youth, conditions of confinement (especially youth/staff ratios, facility security, and access to community activities), and the extent of chronic crowding in juvenile correctional facilities. Overall, the data reveal a highly complex and idiosyncratic pattern of correctional facility use among the States that is largely unexplained by youth crime factors. Clearly, detention centers and training schools are not being used solely for public protection. Further, the conditions of confinement within these facilities are widely disparate. Tabular data, notes, and references are provided.