Title: Residential Placement of Adjudicated Youth, 1987-1996 Series: OJJDP Fact Sheet Author: Lynn Ryan MacKenzie Published: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Subject: adjudication-juvenile cases pages: 4 bytes: 6,000 Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-638-8736. Residential Placement of Adjudicated Youth, 1987- 1996 by Lynn Ryan MacKenzie In 1996, more than one in four adjudicated delinquency cases resulted in out-of-home placement Juvenile courts employ a variety of dispositions for youth adjudicated as delinquent offenders. In 1996, 28% of adjudicated delinquency cases resulted in a disposition ordering out-of-home placement. This included placements in residential treatment centers, juvenile corrections facilities, foster homes, and group homes. Of the remaining cases, 54% resulted in an order of probation, 4% resulted in a release at disposition, and 13% had some other disposition, such as restitution, fines, community service, referral to other treatment agencies, etc. The Children in Custody Census reported that 65,300 juveniles were in out-of-home placement by court commitment for delinquency on February 15, 1995. Of these, 67% were in public facilities and 33% were in private facilities. The average length of stay for juveniles committed to public facilities and released in 1994 was 147 days; for private facilities, the average length of stay was 109 days. In 1996, placement was least likely in cases involving youth charged with drug offenses (24%). Placement was used more frequently in adjudicated public order offense cases (32%), person offense cases (31%), and property offense cases (26%). The percentage for public order offense cases was relatively high because these cases included escapes from institutions along with probation and parole violations. Placement cases grew 51% between 1987 and 1996 The number of adjudicated cases that resulted in out-of-home placement rose from 105,600 in 1987 to 159,400 in 1996. The largest increase was in the number of drug offense cases resulting in placement, which grew 102% from 1987 to 1996, and the number of person offense cases resulting in placement, which grew 100%. Placement for public order offenses grew 55%, followed by placement for property offenses, which grew 25%. The general pattern of increase in the number of out-of-home placements followed the pattern of increase in the number of adjudicated delinquency cases between 1987 and 1996: drug offenses grew 161%, person offenses grew 112%, public order offenses grew 81%, and property offenses grew 33%. Use of detention decreased in adjudicated cases where out-of-home placement was later ordered In 1987, 60% of adjudicated youth who were placed out of the home had been detained prior to case disposition; in 1996, this figure dropped to 47%. During that same 10-year period, however, detained cases resulting in out-of-home placement remained steady at 49% and nondetained cases resulting in out-of-home placement remained steady at 20%. The number of placements between 1987 and 1996 increased across all racial groups In 1996, the majority of adjudicated cases resulting in placement involved white juveniles (59%). However, between 1987 and 1996, the number of adjudicated cases involving placement increased least for white youth (43%) compared with black youth (58%) and youth of other races (128%). An estimated total of 159,400 adjudicated cases resulted in out-of-home placement in 1996. Of these, 94,600 involved white youth, 57,200 involved black youth, and 7,600 involved youth of other races. In that same year, 26% of adjudicated cases involving white youth resulted in out-of-home placement compared with 32% of cases involving black and other minority youth. While these data cannot control for the severity of the offense or the court histories of the youth, the disproportionate representation of minorities in out-of-home placement is a national concern. Suggestions of court bias in assessing the home conditions of minority youth and the lack of available community resources to provide needed supports have been raised as possible factors contributing to disparities in placement practices. For further information This Fact Sheet is based on the Report Juvenile Court Statistics 1996. Copies are available from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's (OJJDP's) Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse, 800-638-8736. OJJDP also supports distribution of a PC-compatible software version of the data analyzed in Juvenile Court Statistics. For a free copy of the software, Easy Access to Juvenile Court Statistics, call the National Juvenile Court Data Archive at the National Center for Juvenile Justice, Pittsburgh, PA, 412-227- 6950. This software can also be downloaded from OJJDP's home page: www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org. ----------------- Lynn Ryan MacKenzie, Ph.D., is a Research Associate with the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, which is supported by an OJJDP grant. ----------------- The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office for Victims of Crime. ----------------- FS-99117