• Detention - JD Secure Admissions by Race - African American/Black [view data]
• Detention - JD Secure Admissions by Race - White [view data]
• Detention - JD Secure Admissions by Race - American Indian [view data]
• Detention - JD Secure Admissions by Race - Asian [view data]
• Detention - JD Secure Admissions by Race - Other/Unknown [view data]
• Detention - JD Secure Admissions by Ethnicity - Hispanic [view data]
• Detention - JD Secure Admissions by Ethnicity - Non-Hispanic [view data]
• Detention - JD Non-secure Admissions by Ethnicity - Hispanic [view data]
• Detention - JD Non-secure Admissions by Ethnicity - Non-Hispanic [view data]
• Detention - JD Non-secure Admissions by Race - African American/Black [view data]
• Detention - JD Non-secure Admissions by Race - American Indian [view data]
• Detention - JD Non-secure Admissions by Race - Asian [view data]
• Detention - JD Non-secure Admissions by Race - Other/Unknown [view data]
• Detention - JD Non-secure Admissions by Race - White [view data]

A young person charged as a juvenile delinquent (JD) may be placed in a secure or non-secure juvenile detention facility pending his/her adjudication. Pre-adjudication detention primarily occurs during court hours as a result of a judicial order, or after court hours if the arresting officer recommends immediate detention and the detention facility authorizes the stay. A youth admitted to detention in the latter scenario, by an arresting officer, must appear in Family Court on the next business day and a detention hearing must be held within 72 hours of admission. While less common, a youth may additionally be ordered to detention post-disposition, in response to a violation of probation or as a waiting period for a court-mandated placement to become available.

New York's Family Court Act asserts that detention should be used in delinquency cases only in response to two types of risk: (1) risk of failure to appear in court and (2) risk of re-arrest pending a court return date. Article 3, Section 320.5 states, "The court shall not direct detention unless it finds and states the facts and reasons for so finding that unless the respondent is detained: (a) there is a substantial probability that he/she will not appear in court on the return date; or (b) there is a serious risk that he/she may, before the return date, commit an act which, if committed by an adult, would constitute a crime."

The key distinction between secure and non-secure facilities is the level of restriction. Secure facilities are locked while non-secure facilities are not. Non-secure facilities are often termed 'staff-secure' as opposed to 'hardware-secure.'

Across the state, there are nine secure juvenile detention facilities located in seven jurisdictions: Albany, Erie, Monroe, Nassau, Onondaga, Westchester, and New York City. Counties that do not have their own secure option rely on out-of-county detention facilities. In addition, there are approximately 50 non-secure detention facilities across the state. Some counties have one or two non-secure facilities, often group homes that provide beds solely to the county. These facilities are typically privately run and staffed.

Ethnicity and race indicators present the number and percentage of JD youth of particular ethnicity or race that are admitted to secure or non-secure detention facilities in a given year. These figures are based upon the number of total admissions, not unique individuals.

Ethnicity and race indicators present the number and percentage of JD youth of particular ethnicity or race that are admitted to secure or non-secure juvenile detention facilities during a given year. These figures are based on the number of total admissions, not the total number of unique individuals.

JD non-secure detention admissions by ethnicity This indicator is calculated by dividing the total number of youth in a given ethnic category (Hispanic; Non-Hispanic) who are admitted to non-secure detention by the total number of admissions, not the total number of unique individuals.

JD secure detention admissions by ethnicity This indicator is calculated by dividing the total number of youth in a given ethnic category (Hispanic; Non-Hispanic) who are admitted to secure detention by the total number of admissions, not the total number of unique individuals.

JD non-secure detention admissions by raceThis indicator is calculated by dividing the total number of youth in a given race (Black or African American; White; American Indian; Asian; and Other/Unknown) who are admitted to non-secure detention by the total number of admissions, not the total number of unique individuals.

JD secure detention admissions by race This indicator is calculated by dividing the total number of youth in a given race (Black or African American; White; American Indian; Asian; and Other/Unknown) who are admitted to non-secure detention by the total number of admissions, not the total number of unique individuals.

The decision to incarcerate an arrested youth prior to adjudication, whether in a secure or non-secure juvenile detention facility, is one of the most critical decisions in the juvenile justice system. Research findings indicate that a stay in a detention facility may increase the chances that a youth will further penetrate the juvenile justice system, even after controlling for other factors.

Detention data originate from the Juvenile Detention Automated System (JDAS), a centralized case management system maintained by the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS). Records containing insufficient information have been omitted suing a systematized data validation routine. For 2005, a total of 499 records were omitted; for 2006, a total of 108 records were omitted.

Due in part to the data migration and in part to self-reporting by the juveniles, racial designations in JDAS did not always fit into consistent categories or into the same categories used in other data sources. Furthermore, a single youth may report more than one race. Non-standard categories found in JDAS have been recoded to match UCR race categories as closely as possible. For admissions reporting a single race, those noted as Native American, other-Black or African- American, Haitian, or Caribbean have been recoded as Black or African-American. Those noted as Korean and other- Asian have been recoded as Asian. The other/unknown category includes those who have the ambiguous designation Indian, those marked as not reported, and those who either have multiple racial designations or were simply marked as multiple.