Sticker Shock: Calculating the Full Price Tag for Youth Incarceration

"Thirty-three U.S. states and jurisdictions spend $100,000 or more annually to incarcerate a young person, and continue to generate outcomes that result in even greater costs ... [this report] provides estimates of the overall costs resulting from the negative outcomes associated with incarceration. The report finds that these long-term consequences of incarcerating young people could cost taxpayers $8 billion to $21 billion each year." This report is divided into eight parts: the costs we bear for overreliance on youth confinement-progress in reducing confinement, without compromising public safety; the tip of the iceberg-what taxpayers pay too incarcerate youth-cost in context and whether the price is too high; estimating the total long-term costs of youth confinement; reoffending and recidivism-studies used to estimate the impact of youth confinement on recidivism, and estimating the costs of youth confinement on recidivism; education, employment, and wages-studies used to estimate the impact of youth confinement on educational attainment; victimization of youth-estimating the impact of youth confinement on facility-based sexual assault, and estimating the cost of impact of sexual assaults on confined youth; the final tally and what we potentially save when we make better choices-a modest silver lining-what the youth deincarceration trend means for the collateral costs; and recommendations.