The number of children behind bars in West Virginia has declined significantly in recent years, but their advocates said more work could be done to create effective alternatives to incarceration.

The one-day count of detained youths in 2021 was nearly 25,000 nationwide, which is a 60% decrease over the past decade, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Josh Rovner, director of youth justice for The Sentencing Project, said while the trend is positive, he does not expect it to continue. He pointed out at least part of the decrease was because of the pandemic.

"When you think about the things that kids get arrested for, it's often school-based referrals," Rovner observed. "And if virtual school is happening, then kids aren't going to be referred by their school resource officers. They're not going to be shoplifting if all the stores are closed, they're not going to be getting into fights if they're all staying at home."

A one-day count in 2019 found almost 500 kids under 18 were in detention facilities in West Virginia. By 2021, the number had dropped to 345. Data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation said young people released from correctional confinement have high rates of being rearrested.

Research has shown children who are incarcerated often experience significant long-term consequences, Rovner noted persist into adulthood.

"Whether there's one child who is locked up -- or 10,000 or 100,000 -- it's important to realize just how toxic these facilities are for kids," Rovner contended. "They have much worse outcomes, not only on their education and career achievements, but also much more likely to reoffend."

Recognizing the adverse effects, experts and activists are asking for a more compassionate approach to juvenile justice. Reforms focusing on rehabilitation and community-based support systems have proven to be more effective in addressing the underlying issues than locking juveniles up.

Efforts to reform juvenile sentencing in the U.S. have made significant strides but a new report showed Alabama is lagging behind.

A study by The Sentencing Project said two in five people sentenced to life without parole were 25 or younger at the time of their crime.

Ashley Nellis, co-director of research for The Sentencing Project, and co-author of the report, said brain science supports the idea people are most prone to criminal behavior in their late teens to mid-20s, a period of heightened risk-taking and impulsivity. She believes young offenders deserve a second chance as they mature.

"There hasn't been a fair response to those who are sitting there 10, 20, 30 years into their sentence and not having any sort of relief, even though many agree now that the adolescent brain is a critical component to consider as sentencing," Nellis explained.

Currently, 55 people in Alabama are serving life without parole or a virtual life sentence for crimes they committed before turning 18.

The report also uncovered racial disparities, with more than 80% of those serving juvenile life without parole in Alabama being Black. Nationally, the figure is 53%.

Nellis argued it is important to extend reforms across the country, as landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases since 2010 have recognized minors should not be held to the same standards of culpability as adults. The rulings acknowledged youth are more susceptible to risk-taking and impulsive behavior, especially in emotionally charged situations.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on life without parole for juveniles and severely limited the allowable use of life without parole for young people," Nellis noted. "But they stopped short of telling the states how to implement."

The report urged policymakers to craft reforms reflecting current brain science and apply to all forms of life imprisonment and extreme sentencing. While 28 states have banned life without parole for minors, and five have eliminated it entirely, Alabama has yet to follow suit.


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A new report shows the rate of juvenile crime has been falling for years but disparities remain in Maryland and nationwide.

The Sentencing Project report showed the number of arrests for people younger than 18 fell more than 80% between 1996 and 2020. The number of young people in juvenile justice facilities on a typical day fell by 75%, from more than 100,000 in 2000 to 27,000 in 2022.

Josh Rovner, director of youth justice for The Sentencing Project and the study's author, said public perception of the crime rate is often tied to hearing about individual crimes.

"Whether it's a homicide or a retail theft, that's an upsetting thing to hear," Rovner acknowledged. "The value in data is to put those events into context and understand that we have always had problems with public safety as a country and to understand whether things are getting better or worse is pretty important if you're trying to figure out how to solve them."

The report found Maryland's 2021 placement rate for detained and committed youths was the sixth-lowest in the nation.

Last September, the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services released a report, which found despite an increase in youth crime over the prior two years, most categories of youth crime in the state including violent crime are below pre-pandemic levels and have been in decline for more than a decade.

The report also found youth of color are overrepresented in the Maryland justice system, which Rovner noted is consistent with his research.

"Youths of color are treated more harshly at every point of contact with the justice system," Rovner explained. "They are more likely to be arrested and after they've been arrested, they are less likely to be referred to diversionary programs. If they are, in fact, found accountable for what they did, white youths are more likely to get probation, and youths of color are more likely to be incarcerated."

The Department of Juvenile Services found while youths of color make up 58% of the youth population in the state, intake complaints for youths of color constituted 75% of the total for 2023.


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Over the past couple of years, North Dakota has implemented juvenile justice reforms.

And a new national report says there's been major progress in the U.S. in reducing youth incarceration rates, but troubling disparities remain.

The Sentencing Project is out with findings that show between 2000 and 2022, there was a 75% decline in youth incarceration around the country.

That coincides with a drop in arrest rates among minors.

The Project's Director of Youth Justice Josh Rovner said, it's worth noting that youths of color are still much more likely than white teens to be held in juvenile facilities.

"This is one of the most daunting problems, that youth of color are treated more harshly at every point of contact with the justice system," said Rovner. "They are more likely to be arrested, and after they've been arrested, they are less likely to be referred to diversionary programs."

Nationally, Indigenous youths were nearly 3.5 times more likely than whites to be detained.

Native Americans are the largest minority population in North Dakota, and a separate state report found that in 2023, Indigenous youths represented 30% of juvenile detentions.

Rovner said he feels that "over-policing" is a factor, and limiting law enforcement interactions for non-serious offenses can help reduce disparities.

Rovner said one way to do that is by overhauling how police officers are placed in the school setting.

As for the long-term progress overall, Rovner said he hopes the public takes notice of what the data show.

"I think that the reason that this report has resonance," said Rovner, "is that it's surprising to many people in the country that believe that things are always getting worse, that believe that this generation of kids is worse than any generation that came before it, when the evidence doesn't back that up."

Rovner suggested that policymakers not lose sight of how successful diversionary programs have been, and that proactive states can serve as a model for others to follow suit.

In 2021, North Dakota adopted reforms that included newly created categories for juvenile delinquency and child welfare.

The goal was to provide more clarity on which types of cases needed referral to the courts, and which ones were better suited for the human services system.




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