Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional, and Shelter Facilities Series

Investigator(s): Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

The Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional, and Shelter Facilities series (formerly called the Juvenile Detention and Correctional Facility Census series and also known as the Children in Custody (CIC) census) was originally designed and sponsored by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the later studies are sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The series is conducted by the United States Census Bureau. These data provide information on the population and characteristics of public (through 1984-1985) or public and private (1986-1987 and beyond) juvenile facilities in operation in the United States each February. Annual data for the previous calendar year are included as well. Residential programs and group homes were included in the census if they housed three or more residents, if at least 50 percent of the residents were juveniles, and if accused or adjudicated delinquents and status offenders were at least 1 percent of their average daily population. In California, however, all California Youth Authority Facilities were included in the census. Juvenile facilities operated as part of adult jails were excluded, as were nonresidential facilities, facilities exclusively for drug or alcohol abusers or nonoffenders, and federal juvenile correctional facilities.

Years Produced: Annually

National Juvenile Corrections Data Summary

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention sponsored three series of national juvenile corrections data collections:

• Census of Public and Private Juvenile Detention, Correctional, and Shelter Facilities Series,
• Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP) Series, and the
• Juvenile Residential Facility Census (JRFC) Series.

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.