Summary: Tribal Youth in the Federal Justice System

• NCJ Number: 234218
• Author(s): Mark Motivans Ph.D.; Howard Snyder Ph.D.
• Date Published: June 2011
• Length: 9 pages
• Agencies: BJS
• Publication Type: Statistics

Annotation

This report describes the Federal criminal justice response to tribal youth.

Abstract

Findings from the evaluation include: in 2008, less than 1 percent of juveniles were referred to Federal prosecutors or admitted to Federal prison jurisdiction, yet 46 percent of juveniles handled by the Federal courts were tribal youth; in 2008, 72 percent of tribal youth were investigated for violent offenses that included sexual abuse, assault, and murder; 91 percent of cases involving tribal youth in U.S. district courts were terminated by conviction, compared to 9 percent through dismissal; admissions to Federal prison jurisdiction among tribal youth declined by 10 percent per year between 1999 and 2008; and in 2008, tribal youth served an average of 26 month under Federal jurisdiction, more than double the tribal justice system maximum sentence of 12 months. This report summarizes the Federal response to tribal youth involved in the criminal justice system during the case-processing stages. Data for this report were obtained from the Federal Justice Statistics Program and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, SENTRY database, which contains information on all federally sentenced offenders. Information on tribal youth involved in the Federal criminal justice case process is presented for investigations and prosecutions, adjudication and sentencing, and corrections. Tables, figures, and references