Number of Children in U.S. Correctional Facilities Escalates

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A growing proportion of the U.S. corrections population is children. Almost 600,000 juveniles were under some type of correctional supervision in 1991. More than 100,000 (17%) were in prisons, juvenile detention facilities, or jails, according to "The Prison Population Bomb," an article by Paula Mergenhagen, that appeared in the February 1996 issue of American Demographics. Of juveniles in the corrections system, 83% were on parole or probation. A "tremendous increase in violent juvenile crime" is a . . .