Youthful offenders who lose their freedom shouldn't lose their chance for a good education.
by Susan Black, American School Board Journal
When kids are locked up, what happens to their education?
That question has no easy answer, say researchers who've tried to pin down state laws and policies for educating juveniles in corrections.
A 2004 study by University of Maryland professors Candace Cutting and Peter Leone shows wide variations in state juvenile justice education requirements. One difference is how long incarcerated kids must attend classes.
In Delaware, for example, juvenile offenders are required to attend school 35 days more each year than public school students. Arizona provides year-round school for incarcerated juveniles, and California requires juvenile court school to be held "every weekday of the calendar year, except holidays and inservices approved by the school board." Some states recommend education but don't require it: Florida, for instance, "strongly encourages juveniles in high risk, maximum risk, or a serious/habitual offender program to participate in an educational or career-related program."
How much states spend to educate juveniles in corrections also varies widely, says Eastern Kentucky University's Bruce Wolford. In a study of correctional education in 20 states, Wolford reports that Colorado's average per-pupil expenditure for juveniles in custody is about $9,000, while Georgia spends about $5,000.
But regardless of requirements and funding, the responsibility for educating incarcerated juveniles rests, for the most part, with the local school district. "Public schools are responsible for educating the majority of youth in the juvenile justice system," Wolford reports.
A New York superintendent told me he puts contingency money into his district's annual budget in the event that students are detained or committed for juvenile offenses. "The court might send a juvenile to a nearby residential center or to a lock-up facility in another county," he explained. "The juvenile justice system contracts with outside agencies for the student's educational services, but we pay the bill."
Juveniles in corrections
Who is incarcerated and for what? The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement reports that 134,011 youth, nationwide, were held in nearly 3,000 residential facilities as of October 1999, the latest year for which statistics are available.
But, says Melissa Sickmund, senior researcher with the National Center for Juvenile Justice, the actual number of juveniles in custody is higher. The census, she notes, does not include "an unknown proportion of juveniles incarcerated in adult jails and prisons."
According to Sickmund's 2004 study for the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), almost nine out of 10 incarcerated youths are boys, most commonly 16- to 17-year-olds. (See sidebar.)
The study also shows that the rates of various delinquency offenses -- violations of laws that are crimes for adults committed by youth under age 21 -- have fluctuated in recent years. Fewer juveniles are held for homicide and robbery, for example, and more are held for simple assault, arson, and drug charges.
Overall, fewer kids are in custody for so-called status offenses, such as incorrigibility, running away, truancy, and curfew violation. At the same time, the number of juveniles held in public facilities for underage drinking has increased by 68 percent.
The census also counts the annual number of deaths in juvenile custody. OJJDP’s 2003-04 annual report says 26 juveniles died while in custody, down from 30 in 2000 and 45 in 1994. Ten juveniles died as the result of suicide; six died by accident; six died from illness or natural causes; and two were victims of homicide by nonresidents. The causes of two deaths were undetermined.
Sitting in the back row
Some teachers and principals say they can predict which youngsters will end up in prison. Recently a first-grade teacher in a city school pointed to two boys, both scheduled to be held back because of immature behavior and low skills. "I know where they'll be in 10 years," she told me. "Sitting in a jail cell."
She might be right.
Most incarcerated juveniles have low literacy and marginal math skills. And most have been retained once or twice but still lag behind their classmates by two or more years. Look for kids who are "abandoned in the back row," says the Coalition for Juvenile Justice in its 2001 annual report. You're looking at kids who are at high risk of dropping out and entering the school-to-prison pipeline.
Many of the kids in the back row are black, says Randall Shelden, who tracks incarceration trends for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJJ). A survey by the Department of Justice in the early 1990s estimated that a black male born in 1991 stood a 28 percent chance of going to prison; an update in 2003 put the odds at 33 percent.
Shelden has documented racial disparities throughout the juvenile justice system:
• Rates of arrest, detention, and incarceration are highest for black juveniles, somewhat lower for Latinos, and lowest for whites.
• Minority juveniles are more likely to have their case petitioned to be before a judge, especially if the offense is drug related.
• Minority juveniles are eight times more likely than white juveniles to be detained for violent crimes and 10 times more likely to be detained for drug offenses.
• Black juveniles are more likely to be placed in lock-up facilities, regardless of the offense, than white juveniles.
Watch for girls in the back row as well. The number of girls sent to public juvenile institutions increased by nearly 50 percent during the 1990s, Shelden says. Girls are often detained and committed for status offenses and technical violations, such as breaking probation or disobeying court orders. In some instances, he reports, girls who haven't been charged with delinquent crimes are held in jails.
Shelden attributes the rising numbers of incarcerated girls to a "get-tough" attitude that has overtaken the juvenile justice system. Juvenile justice, he says, is becoming increasingly more punitive, often aiming to discipline youthful offenders rather than provide education and rehabilitation.
