• | On any given day, more than 100,000 teens are incarcerated in the United States. |
• | In addition to the 100,000 in juvenile correctional facilities, on a typical day in 2004 about 7,000 persons younger than 18 were inmates in adult jails. |
• | The Department of Justice projects that the juvenile prison population will be 36 percent higher in 2020 than it was in 2000. |
• | The US has a higher juvenile crime rate than any other industrialized nation in the world. |
• | The inmate population racial breakdown is 38% Black, 19% Hispanic, and 39% White (the remaining few percent are primarily Native American and Asian). Between now and 2020, the Hispanic population in custody is predicted to grow at a much faster rate than the other groups. |
• | 85% of teens in custody are male. |