Median days in placement since admission, by placement status, 1997-2019

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Serving Children, Families, and Communities

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Time in Placement

Q:	How long do juveniles stay in juvenile residential placement facilities?
A:	Half of committed residents had been in placement longer than 113 days when the census was taken. Half of detained juveniles had been in placement fewer than 26 days.

Placement status	1997	1999	2001	2003	2006	2007	2010	2011	2013	2015	2017	2019
All facilities	69	76	77	69	65	64	70	63	76	69	68	64
Committed	112	125	128	113	112	110	114	103	120	112	114	113
Detained	17	17	15	15	16	15	19	15	22	21	23	26
Private facilities	110	112	110	109	106	104	113	98	113	110	119	105
Committed	121	131	124	121	120	119	127	111	126	121	128	115
Detained	26	21	20	20	22	17	19	19	28	27	40	36
Public facilities	55	62	63	50	47	48	50	47	58	50	49	50
Committed	106	120	132	105	107	104	106	97	117	105	104	112
Detained	16	16	15	15	15	15	19	15	21	21	22	26

Notes: The "median days in placement" statistic indicates that half the residents stayed fewer days and half stayed more days.

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Information on length of stay is key to understanding the justice system’s handling of juveniles in residential placement. Developing information on the length of time juveniles spend in residential placement, however, is a difficult task. Ideally, length of stay would be calculated for each individual juvenile by combining their days of stay in residential placement from their first admission to their last release relating to a particular case. These individual lengths of placement would then be averaged for different release cohorts of juveniles. The Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement captures information on the number of days since admission to a particular facility for each juvenile in residential placement. These data represent the number of days the juvenile had been in the facility up to the reference date of the census. Because the data are not based on a release cohort, however, complete lengths of stay cannot be determined. The data reflect only a juvenile’s placement at one facility and not multiple placements in multiple facilities. The data provide an overall profile of the time juveniles had been in the facility at the time of the census—a 1-day snapshot of time spent in the facility.
In 2019, at the time of the census, residents had been in the facility an average of 128 days since their admission. A few residents for whom very long stays were reported, however, skew this average (mean). In fact, half of all residents had been in placement fewer than 64 days (median).
Residents’ time in the facility varied by their placement status. Half of committed residents had been in placement longer than 113 days. Time in placement for detained juveniles was substantially shorter than for committed juveniles. Half of all detained juveniles had been in placement fewer than 26 days.
Time in placement was also related to whether juveniles were held in a public or private facility. In public facilities, half of committed juveniles had been in placement longer than 112 days. In private facilities, half of committed juveniles had been in the facility longer than 115 days. Among the detained population in 2019, juveniles detained in private facilities had been in the facility for somewhat longer durations than those detained in public facilities. Half of those detained in public facilities had been in placement fewer than 26 days. Half of youth detained in private facilities had been in placement fewer than 36 days.

Internet citation: OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book. Online. Available: https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/corrections/qa08405.asp?qaDate=2019. Released on May 21, 2021.

Data Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 [machine-readable data files]. Washington, D.C.: OJJDP.