Investigator(s): Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
The Juvenile Residential Facility Census (JRFC) collects basic information on facility characteristics, including size, structure, security arrangements, and ownership. It also provides information on the use of bed space in the facility to indicate whether the facility is experiencing crowding. The JRFC includes questions about the type of facility, such as detention center, training school, ranch, or group home. This information is complemented by a series of questions about other residential services provided by the facility, such as independent living, foster care, or other arrangements. The JRFC uses four modules to collect information on the health care, education, substance abuse treatment, and mental health treatment provided to youth in these facilities. These four modules are not always collected each year. While not evaluating the effectiveness or quality of these services, the JRFC gathers important information about the youth the services are directed toward and how the services are provided. The census indicates the use of screenings or tests conducted to determine counseling, education, health, or substance abuse needs, and also examines prominent issues about conditions of confinement, including the restraint of youth and improper absences from the facility. Congress requires the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to report annually on the number of deaths of juveniles in custody; JRFC collects information on such deaths for the one-year period just prior to the census reference date. The census reference date is the fourth Wednesday in October. The inclusion criteria for facilities are: (1) the facility must house persons under the age of 21, (2) who were charged with or adjudicated for an offense, and (3) were present in the facility on the reference date because of that offense. JRFC does not capture data on adult prisons or jails, nor does it include facilities that are used exclusively for mental health or substance abuse treatment or for dependent children.
Years Produced: Biennially since 2000, in even-numbered years.
National Juvenile Corrections Data Summary
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention sponsored three series of national juvenile corrections data collections:
The CJRP was administered for the first time in 1997. The CJRP replaced the Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional, and Shelter Facilities (formerly called the Juvenile Detention and Correctional Facility Census series and also known as the Children in Custody (CIC) census), which had been conducted since the early 1970s. The CJRP differs fundamentally from CIC in that the CIC collected aggregate data on juveniles held in each facility (e.g., number of juveniles in the facility) and the CJRP collects an individual record on each juvenile held in the residential facility to provide a detailed picture of juveniles in custody. The companion data collection to CJRP, the JRFC, is designed to collect information about the facilities in which juvenile offenders are held.
ICPSR merged data from the CJRP series with data from the JRFC series. These studies are included in the Matched Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP)/Juvenile Residential Facility Census (JRFC) Series.
More information can be found in NACJD's National Juvenile Corrections Data Resource Guide.