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Staggering death rate for youth in Chicago juvenile justice system
A recent study published in the medical journal Pediatrics sheds new light on the tragic fate that confronts the impoverished and troubled youth who are caught up in the juvenile justice system in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. After 10 years of research into the conditions of youth in Cook County’s juvenile justice system, Dr. Linda Teplin of Northwestern University found that they are four times more likely to suffer an early violent death than their peers in the general population.
Illinois statutes define delinquency offenses as actions committed by someone younger than 17 years old that would be considered crimes if they had been committed by someone 17 or older. In 2003, 5,476 youth were being supervised by the Cook County Juvenile Probation Department, with at least 650 youth in detention centers, which have a daily intake of 20 children.
The researchers, who initially planned on analyzing the health needs of these youth, not their mortality rates, were staggered by the results. Far from lifting them out of an environment of poverty, neglect and violence, the juvenile justice system left these youth in the same miserable conditions and, in the end, contributed to premature death.
“Our first death occurred within the first year of the study, and people were shocked,” said Teplin. “But as the deaths rose, I realized that there was a story to be told here because no one studies these kids.... [T]hey study recidivism in delinquent kids, but very few people look at the health needs of these kids.”
According to Teplin, the study is not only the most comprehensive attempt in more than 60 years to pinpoint death rates in the juvenile justice system, but is also the first of its kind with regards to the data collected on young women. The picture painted for females is even grimmer, with female juveniles nearly eight times more likely to die before their peers in the general population.
“They [females] are probably most likely to be abused at home, neglected at home, maybe running away, facing a dismal life on the street, getting involved in the drug trade,” Teplin speculated.
Starting in 1995, Teplin and her team followed 1,829 youths who were randomly sampled after passing through the intake department of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. The sample’s demographics (55 percent African-American, 28 percent Hispanic and approximately 16 percent white) underscore the disproportionately high rate of minority youth in the system.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/cook-d01.shtml
The researchers, who initially planned on analyzing the health needs of these youth, not their mortality rates, were staggered by the results. Far from lifting them out of an environment of poverty, neglect and violence, the juvenile justice system left these youth in the same miserable conditions and, in the end, contributed to premature death.
“Our first death occurred within the first year of the study, and people were shocked,” said Teplin. “But as the deaths rose, I realized that there was a story to be told here because no one studies these kids.... [T]hey study recidivism in delinquent kids, but very few people look at the health needs of these kids.”
According to Teplin, the study is not only the most comprehensive attempt in more than 60 years to pinpoint death rates in the juvenile justice system, but is also the first of its kind with regards to the data collected on young women. The picture painted for females is even grimmer, with female juveniles nearly eight times more likely to die before their peers in the general population.
“They [females] are probably most likely to be abused at home, neglected at home, maybe running away, facing a dismal life on the street, getting involved in the drug trade,” Teplin speculated.
Starting in 1995, Teplin and her team followed 1,829 youths who were randomly sampled after passing through the intake department of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. The sample’s demographics (55 percent African-American, 28 percent Hispanic and approximately 16 percent white) underscore the disproportionately high rate of minority youth in the system.
Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/cook-d01.shtml
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