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Youth Under 18 Years Old in Adult Prisons in the United States, 1997

Metadata Updated: November 28, 2023

This survey of departments of corrections in the United States was undertaken to provide correctional staff with design, implementation, and management strategies to meet the needs of prisoners under the age of 18. The study examined what happens when individuals under age 18 are placed in adult correctional facilities, and explored the ways in which departments of corrections are attempting to deal with the growing population of youthful inmates. The following three objectives were the focus of this study: (1) to describe the number of incarcerated youths (at time of admission) being held in the nation's prison system, (2) to examine the different methods being used to house inmates under 18 years old, and (3) to explore different management approaches used with youthful inmates in terms of the size of the prison system and the area of the country in which they were located. For this study, respondents in 51 departments of corrections (50 states and the District of Columbia) were contacted by telephone regarding survey questions that were mailed prior to the phone interviews. The survey contained five questions concerning current practices for handling offenders under the age of 18 who had been placed in adult correctional institutions. Data were collected on the method used to house underaged inmates and the size of each system's population of inmates under 18 years old. Subsequently, the method and size data were combined to form categories describing four management approaches for dealing with offenders under the age of 18 in adult prisons: (1) separated/big, (2) separated/little, (3) integrated/big, and (4) integrated/little. Demographic variables include the population size and region (Northeast, South, Midwest, or West) of each jurisdiction, as well as the number and proportion of offenders under 18 years old within each state. Also present in the file is the location and name of the facility with the largest under-18 population in each jurisdiction.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: us-pd

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 28, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date August 18, 2021
Metadata Updated Date November 28, 2023
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 3484
Data First Published 2000-04-18T00:00:00
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2000-04-18T00:00:00
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 81f41a9f-e71e-4e51-a3af-b836a891a336
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash f720689b3ad680e3481712eb5fb2ec61b42018ec18fd3d6128f415aac39ea0d9
Source Schema Version 1.1

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