space Assessment of Space Needs in Juvenile Detention and Corrections Facilities

During the past year, OJJDP undertook a congressionally required study of space needs in juvenile detention and correctional facilities and submitted a report to Congress in July 1998. The report examines the need for space nationwide based on information from several data collection programs supported by the U.S. Department of Justice. The report also analyzes this need in 10 States selected by Congress for more detailed study. The States are Alaska, California, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Based on analysis of several national data sets and on assessments from State experts, OJJDP found the following:

  • Nationwide, juvenile detention and corrections facilities appear to be moderately crowded, although the causes of this crowding can be traced to several factors other than the volume of juvenile crime in each jurisdiction.

  • Most of the 10 States identified by Congress have experienced moderate to severe crowding in their juvenile detention and corrections facilities in recent years.

  • No State contacted for the assessment reported that it had all of the resources it required for both juvenile detention and juvenile corrections.

  • Eight of the ten States plan to add 10 percent or more to their existing corrections bedspace within the next 5 years; 7 of the 10 plan to add 10 percent or more to the existing number of detention beds.

The assessment also found several general obstacles to effective State planning. These obstacles include:

  • Projecting future juvenile corrections populations is often more challenging than projecting future trends in adult corrections.

  • Nationally available information (e.g., population, arrest, and juvenile court data) is insufficient for projecting future juvenile detention and corrections bedspace in a manner that is most useful to policymakers and administrators.

  • Understanding the sources of demand for detention and corrections space requires a knowledge of the laws, policies, and practices that shape each jurisdiction's juvenile justice system.

  • The methods States currently use to plan for future detention and corrections space vary significantly.

  • More than half of the States assessed for the report make either limited or no use of empirically based methods to project future bedspace needs.

The report emphasizes that assessing space needs and projecting future requirements are policy analysis exercises most effectively pursued as a component of a more comprehensive planning process. Projections of future bedspace are effective only if they provide sound information that is useful for developing, implementing, and monitoring juvenile justice policy. The report also describes several sound methodologies to help States increase their ability to forecast future bed needs. It is, however, also clear from the report's analysis of existing national data sets and the experiences of the 10 States that the solution to the States' problems with projecting future bed needs is not simply to increase the amount of data available to State juvenile justice agencies. The report concludes that projecting future bedspace should be an exercise at least as much in policy analysis as in data analysis. In fact, the best approaches to forecasting future corrections and detention needs may involve using statistical forecast methodologies primarily as learning tools. In this way, population forecasting methods can aid State and local officials in making complex decisions that are fundamentally about management and policy rather than statistical accuracy.

OJJDP is expanding the scope of the report to provide an indepth analysis of the supply and demand for detention and corrections bedspace nationally and to develop analytic tools for use in determining future needs at both the national and State levels. OJJDP awarded a grant to The Urban Institute of Washington, DC, to conduct the study, which is to be completed by October 2000. The space needs assessment is funded through the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants program, discussed later in this chapter. An Assessment of Space Needs in Juvenile Detention and Correctional Facilities (Report to Congress) is available from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse (see "How To Access Information From JJC").


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OJJDP Annual Report 1998 October 1999