NCJ Number
93880
Date Published
1983
Length
123 pages
Annotation
This report presents 1974 (as a baseline) and 1978-81 Wisconsin data on preadjudication secure detention of juveniles, namely, statistics on (1) age, sex, and race of the detention population; (2) reason for detention and associated variables; (3) status offense detentions; (4) traffic offense detentions; and (5) length of stay.
Abstract
A fundamental finding of the report is the 53 percent decrease in the overall number of detentions and the 20 percent increase in the average length of detentions for 1974-81. This overall trend holds for the jails and detention centers, while in police lockups, the number of detentions has increased, and the average length of detention has decreased to less than 2 hours. The number of detentions for status offenses decreased by over 90 percent from 1974 to 1981, and the average length of detention for these offenses decreased, contrary to the overall trend. The proportion of male to female detentions has been increasing. Males are generally detained longer than females, even when other variables are controlled. The proportion of white to black detentions has been decreasing since 1974, and in 1981 was 70 percent white and 30 percent black. Across all offenses, blacks are held longer than whites; however, for offenses against property, whites are held longer than blacks. The report concludes that over the years there have been fewer and fewer preadjudication detentions for most of the lesser offenses, because this is mandated by the Children's Code. Since males are detained for more serious offenses than females, this would account for the increase in the proportion of males detained. The large decrease in status offense detentions, since these include many females, would also tend to increase the proportion of males detained. Since blacks tend to be detained for more serious offenses than whites, this same logic would apply to the increase in black detentions relative to those of whites. Finally, analysis shows that all of the variables used in this report account for less than 10 percent of the variance in length of juvenile detentions. Future analysis must identify other variables if there is to be an understanding of the variables controlling juvenile detentions in Wisconsin. The appendixes contain the detention codebook used in the study and an analysis-of-variance summary tables. Tabular data and two references are included.