Youth Detention Bed Caps
Overview
Policymakers have long explored how best to achieve the related objectives of avoiding unnecessary youth involvement in the criminal justice system, ensuring public safety, and reducing recidivism. This effort has included a focus on the necessary and appropriate number of youth detention beds to detain youth offenders while they are awaiting trial or transfer to another facility.
This report examines the:
history of statutory limits on the youth detention bed caps,
differing perspectives on the level at which the cap should be set,
process for detention decision-making,
experience, insights and capacity challenges of the Colorado Division of Youth Services, including a growing demand for treatment of youth in detention, and
trending rates and nature of violent crimes committed by youth.
After a comprehensive analysis of the history, data and policy landscape of youth detention bed caps, this report provides a recommendation for an evidence-based approach to establishing the bed cap on an annual basis.
Among the report’s key takeaways:
Colorado is unique among states in its approach to reducing youth detention through setting an upper bound on how many juvenile offenders can be detained at any given time.
Colorado also has utilized other measures to reduce the number of juvenile detentions, including updating detention screening instruments and admissions criteria to be more evidence based.
From 2003 to 2021, Colorado lowered the bed cap in incremental steps from 479 to 215.
The statewide bed cap should not be seen as providing detention beds for any community across the state. Beds are managed by region and excess capacity in one region is typically not available to another region.
Requests for additional youth detention beds have corresponded with recent increases in average daily population and maximum daily counts at Division of Youth Services youth service centers.
The increase in demand for detention beds is driven by a number of factors, including an increase in the severity of crimes committed by youth under 18, higher occurrences of mental and substance abuse disorders among offenders, and fewer spots for residential treatment facilities.
Instead of a static annual cap prescribed by statute, the state should use a formula and set the statewide detention bed cap annually.
This formula-based cap should be considered in conjunction with an enhanced focus on residential treatment capacity.
Research Findings
Colorado’s goal of reducing youth detention is shared by states across the country, as most have an explicit goal of reducing youth detention and incarceration. What is unique about Colorado’s goal is its approach in reducing youth detention through setting an upper bound on how many juvenile offenders can be detained at any given time in the state. Beyond the bed cap, Colorado has enacted several initiatives since the 1990s to reduce the number of juvenile detentions, including using objective admissions criteria and screening instruments and reducing the number of youth detained for rule violations.
History of Detention Bed Caps in Colorado
In 2003, Senate Bill 03-286 was enacted, limiting the number of pretrial (pre-adjudication) youth detention beds available in the Division of Youth Services (DYS) while they are awaiting trial or transfer to another facility. With an initial bed cap of 479, subsequent legislation further reduced the bed cap to 215. House Bill 23-1307 added an additional 22 emergency beds and 15 flex beds.
Each bill that lowered the bed cap did so under varying circumstances:
SB 03-286[1]: Initially set the bed cap at 479 beds statewide and directed a working group to set the bed limits by catchment area.
SB 11-217[2]: JBC bill set the bed cap at 422 in response to declining use of detention beds.
SB 13-177[3]: JBC bill set the bed cap to 382 in response to declining use of detention beds.
SB 19-210[4]: JBC bill reduced the bed cap to 327 in response to Department request to address misallocation of resources within facilities, per the Joint Budget Committee briefing document[5].
Executive Order D 2020 034[6]: COVID-19 pandemic restrictions on admitting juveniles into detention not currently detained.
SB 21-071[7]: Reduced bed cap to 215 in response to lower use of detention beds during the COVID-19 pandemic and set the policy goal to limit the admission of youth into detention facilities due to potential adverse impacts on youth outcomes. It also required any juvenile bonds set to be unsecured personal recognizance bonds and created reporting requirements for the working group.
Governor Polis’s budget request for state fiscal year 2025-26 requests an increase in the youth detention bed cap from 215 to 254 for FY 2025-26 by converting the emergency and flex beds to standard beds. According to the budget request, the Colorado Youth Detention Continuum Advisory Board voted to support the increase[8].
Increase in Detentions
This request for additional youth detention beds corresponds to recent increases in average daily population (ADP) and maximum daily counts at Division of Youth Services youth service centers. Since FY 2020-21, the average daily population in these centers has increased by 31.2% while the maximum bed count increased by 24.2%, although neither metric has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff’s December forecast includes projections for Division of Youth Services corrections, detentions, and parole populations. In December 2024, they forecasted the youth detention population to continue increasing from the
193 average daily population in FY 2023-24 to 220 by FY 2026-27,[9] which exceeds the current statewide bed cap. Similarly, the Division of Criminal Justice’s forecast estimates 245 average daily population by FY 2026-27.[10]
The average daily population is typically used as a comparative metric against the bed cap to determine the strain on the detention beds, which is defined by the Division of Youth Services as 90% of all beds filled. The maximum count indicates the maximum number of youth in detention centers by judicial district. When considering the average daily population, six districts’ operations and bed caps were strained – with all six exceeding their bed caps – during FY 2023-24, while the state’s average sat right at 90%. If the max count is considered, 19 districts exceeded their bed caps, having to use emergency and flex beds.
While detention beds are allocated by the Colorado Youth Detention Committee advisory board across catchment areas (regions), the statewide bed cap should not be seen as providing detention beds for any community across the state. Beds are managed by region and excess capacity in one region is typically not available to another region. Beyond the logistical limitations impeding the use of excess bed capacity for another region, research strongly indicates the benefits of juvenile offenders being incarcerated closer to their families and communities. More frequent family visits and community-based treatment models have been shown to reduce behavioral issues and feelings of isolation, while improving educational performance while detained.[11]
Factors Contributing to Detention Bed Use
The pathway to detention for a juvenile offender involves various levels of government. It begins with a crime committed by a juvenile offender and ends with a judge making a ruling at a detention hearing before the juvenile is detained longer than 48 hours, as shown in the graphic below.
Because there are many actors and points of decision, the increase in demand for detention beds is driven by a number of factors:
Decisions by the various actors in the juvenile justice process, including law enforcement officers, district attorneys, defense attorneys, and judges;
An increase in the severity of crimes committed by youth under 18;
An increase in the victimization of youth under 18;
Higher occurrences of mental and substance abuse disorders among offenders, and a shortage of residential, community-based, or home-based placement availability.
Each of these factors is discussed below.
Detention Decision-making
The secure placement, or detention, decision is made between the district attorney, the court, and the risk assessment through the Juvenile Detention Screening Assessment Guide. The offender’s threat to public safety and the potential for them to fail to appear at subsequent court hearings is evaluated. The decision whether to detain a juvenile prior to trial follows the process established in 19-2.5-303-305 in the Colorado Revised Statutes:
Once a juvenile is taken into custody and not released to their parents or guardians, a screening team administers a detention screening evaluation to determine whether the juvenile “poses a substantial risk of serious harm to others or a substantial risk of flight from prosecution and finds that community-based alternatives to detention are insufficient to reasonably mitigate that risk.”[12]
Every juvenile must be screened if detention is considered.
An override explanation is required if the score does not mandate detention.
The screening team notifies the juvenile’s parents or guardian, the court, the district attorney, and the local state public defender’s office of the detention. A detention hearing is required to be held within 48 business hours of detention to determine whether further detention is necessary.
At the hearing, the court must determine the following to continue to detain the juvenile:
Probable cause exists that the juvenile detained committed the charged crime;
The juvenile’s risk assessment scored them as eligible for detention;
The juvenile poses a substantial risk of serious harm to the community or risk of flight and community-based alternatives cannot mitigate the risk.
The screening tool plays a significant role in detention decision making. Risk assessments are frequently used in making determinations about case management, treatment planning, detentions and commitments, and release from detention or commitment, but have mixed findings regarding their efficacy.[13] Assessment or screening tools for pretrial detention are typically short (roughly a dozen items included), can be conducted remotely, and focus on static factors like offense history, current offense, and age.[14]
The screening tool (established by Senate Bill 91-094) is only used to determine detention decisions for new admissions and focuses on the potential of the juvenile to fail to appear in court or to reoffend.[15] There are five levels of potential outcomes from the assessment:
Secure detention
Staff secure detention
Residential placement or a temporary shelter
Home release with services
Release
A meta-analysis of 22 studies was conducted on whether pretrial risk assessments reduced detention rates. Slightly more than 55% of the studies deemed valid concluded that the use of a risk assessment tool decreased pretrial detentions. These studies primarily focused on post-conviction placements and had inconsistent results.[16] Colorado’s Juvenile Justice Reform Committee, established in 2019, was charged by the Legislature with developing a new validated risk and needs assessment tool. The tool is used by juvenile courts, the Division of Youth Services, and juvenile probation departments in determining case plans. This tool was selected with expert assistance from the University of Massachusetts and is set to roll out in February 2025. The implementation of this new tool may result in fluctuations in the number of juveniles screened into detention.
In Colorado, the percentage of juveniles screened for detention that are admitted to detention has shifted over the years, as shown in the chart below. In FY 2014-15, 88% of juveniles screened were detained. This percentage dropped to 71% by FY 2023-24. Over that same period, the percentage of juveniles detained for felonies increased to 46.4% from 25.8% and for misdemeanors to 20.2% from 16.0%, while detentions dropped for technical violations (5.4% to 0.7%), failure to appear (11.3% to 6.1%), and failure to comply (33.3% to 22.7%). This indicates that juveniles in detention are more likely to have screened in based on the severity of the alleged offense leading to their arrest or court order compared to ten years ago.
In FY 2023-24, 71.4% of juveniles screened for detention were admitted to a detention facility, down from 82.8% in FY 2018-19. During FY 2023-24, 18.1% of juveniles assessed were placed in a less secure facility than what their screening level indicated, while 3.5% were placed in higher security facilities, indicating that juveniles were placed in a less secure facility than recommended by the assessment at a rate more than five times greater than the rate at which juveniles were placed in a more secure facility.[17]
The addition of emergency beds helped alleviate the strain on youth service centers to a certain extent. Each catchment area has varying rules regarding how emergency beds can be used. For example, the Central region, which stretches horizontally from Eagle to Lincoln Counties and includes much of the Denver Metro area, must use all detention bed across the three youth service centers in the catchment area and another youth service center within a 50-mile radius before emergency beds can be leveraged. While this may alleviate some pressure on the detention bed system, it creates difficulties for youth who are placed at a service center far from their homes, since family, attorneys, and courts may be more difficult to access and require police escorts to transport the youth. With the consideration of transfers further than 50 miles from the juvenile’s home district, both the statewide bed cap and emergency bed allocation are only meaningful at the regional level.
Anecdotally, judicial districts with the highest level of strain have had to release juveniles from detention to make room for juveniles with higher level crimes. Youth crime data cannot be shared per state statute, but there have been notable cases reported on by the media.[18]
While these factors may lead to longer average lengths of stay in detention for a small population, the median length of stay has remained low. In FY 2023-24, 28% of detainees were released within 48 hours and 72% were released in under 20 days, lower than the average length of state of 23 days.[19] The remaining 28% had detention stays longer than
20 days, with 10 juveniles detained longer than one year. The average length of stay increased by 59.6% over the last decade and by 30.9% over pre-pandemic levels in
FY 2018-19.
Despite the approximately three-week stay average, the median length of stay was just under 6 days. This indicates that the detainees with longer stays, and likely more complex cases, are bringing the average up. Youth detained with no prior detentions comprised 45.4% of total youth detained and averaged 16.7 days in detention. Youth with two or more prior detentions averaged 32.7 days in detention and comprised 34.1% of the detainee population.[20]
Severity of Crimes
The severity of the crime committed by a juvenile offender has a direct impact on detention bed demand. Juveniles that commit a violent or weapons crime may have cases filed directly with adult courts, which increases the length of time they are detained at youth facilities. Additionally, these offenders are often screened into detention as higher risk individuals, meaning they are more likely to be detained in secure facilities.
After a 36% year-over-year decline in the total number of youth under 18 detained for violent crimes between FY 2019-20 and FY 2020-21, detainments for violent crimes committed by youth rebounded by 49% through FY 2023-24. During this period, fewer juveniles were detained for nonviolent crime, leading to a higher proportion of total detainees with violent crime arrests, increasing from 29.2% in FY 2018-19 to 41.2% in FY 2023-24.
Similarly, there has been an 80% increase in detentions for homicide or manslaughter-related charges between FY 2020-21 and FY 2023-24. Out of all violent crimes using a firearm in 2023, 14.0% were committed by youth under 18, totaling 1,073 offenses.
The increase in violent crimes committed by youth under 18 results in an increase in victims in the same age range. Almost 20% of all victims of violent crime were under 18 in 2023, and approximately 30% of all crimes against youth were committed by youth offenders – meaning most violent crimes against juveniles are committed by adults. Many studies have been conducted on the impacts of violent crime and peer victimization on those victims subsequently engaging in violent behavior.[21] A survey of over 3,600 12- to 17-year-olds found that 12.4% had experienced peer violent victimization in the past, and 56.3% of those victims reported engaging in delinquent behavior. The same study determined that these adolescents were almost twice as likely to engage in delinquent behavior than someone who had not been victimized.[22]
Ensuring the Protection of Youth within the Division of Youth Services
Increasing the bed caps will alleviate pressure on the judicial districts, Division of Youth Services, and other criminal justice agencies that manage detentions and bed allocation. It also would impact staffing needs. DYS has noted staffing shortages at their facilities and the increasing acuity of treatment needs of the population detained. DYS believes this has contributed to cases of physical altercations between youth or between youth and staff. An analysis of some of these issues can be found in the Child Protection Ombudsman of Colorado’s 2024 issue brief entitled Surveillance Within the Division of Youth Services: How current efforts to monitor the use of physical restraints fall short.[23]
Need for Additional Treatment
In addition to an increase in the severity of crimes committed and rising victimization, treatment needs for committed youth have grown. If a juvenile offender is assessed for mental or behavioral health or substance abuse treatment, there is a shortage of residential placements for the juveniles to be transferred to, leading to longer stays in youth detention facilities.
According to Division of Youth Services data, in FY 2018-19, 92.4% of committed youth needed treatment for mental health or substance abuse, while 55.5% required treatment for both. By FY 2023-24, the increase in need for both treatments increased to 75.3%, and the percentage of youth that needed either treatment rose to 95.9%.[24] The trauma of victimization and witnessing violence particularly impacts adolescents in their stage of cognitive development. These traumas have been associated with an increase in mental health disorders, substance abuse, and rates of violent crime in adulthood.[25]
In a survey of Colorado Youth Detention Continuum coordinators, the top three barriers to mental and behavioral services were:
Lack of placement options,
Lack of inpatient substance use treatment, and
Waitlists for services.[26]
The report lists 171 spots in residential child care facilities with qualified residential treatment programs across the state in 2023 and 166 spots at residential child care facilities with psychiatric residential treatment facilities for a total of 337 residential treatment spots. To put this number in context, there were 1,951 detentions for felony offenses in
FY 2023-24, and 169 detentions for homicide or manslaughter-related charges.
Legislative Changes to the Juvenile Detention & Justice System
Since Senate Bill 91-094 established the Colorado Youth Detention Continuum (CYDC), the state has made ongoing modifications to the juvenile justice system. Below is a list of bills that have been enacted primarily since 2019, in addition to the bills that have modified the youth detention bed cap.
| Youth Detention Bed Caps | |
|---|---|
| SB 03-286 | This bill restructured the juvenile detention system in Colorado, establishing a statewide cap on the number of juvenile detention beds to manage capacity and promote alternative sentencing. It aimed to encourage the use of community-based programs and reduce reliance on secure detention for juveniles. |
| SB 11-217 | This legislation focused on enhancing the juvenile justice system by implementing reforms that included setting limitations on the use of detention for certain offenses. It sought to ensure that detention was used appropriately, reserving secure facilities for higher-risk youth and promoting alternatives for others. |
| SB 13-177 | This bill aimed to improve outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system by revising policies related to detention and emphasizing the use of evidence-based practices. It included provisions to adjust the detention bed cap to better align with the needs of the juvenile population and support rehabilitative approaches. |
| SB 19-210 | This legislation reduced the cap on juvenile detention beds from 382 to 327, reflecting a shift towards limiting the use of detention for juveniles. It directed the Division of Youth Services to report on necessary statutory and rule changes to create flexibility in the allocation of juvenile detention beds among judicial districts. |
| SB 21-071 | This act further reduced the juvenile detention bed cap from 327 to 215, effective in fiscal year 2021-22, as part of measures to limit the detention of juveniles. It also prohibited secured monetary or property conditions on bonds for juveniles and expanded the responsibilities of the working group on juvenile offender placement to examine alternatives to detention. |
| SB 91-094 | This bill established a framework for local judicial districts to implement alternatives to detention for juveniles, aiming to reduce reliance on secure detention facilities. It emphasizes community-based supervision, diversion programs, and early intervention services to address juvenile behavior while keeping youth out of formal detention centers. |
| SB 18-254 | This bill requires local juvenile services planning committees to develop a plan for identifying youth in the juvenile justice system who also are or have been involved in the child welfare system (dually identified crossover youth). The plan must establish a method for exchanging information between the various agencies involved and ensuring they are placed in the least restrictive setting possible. |
| SB 19-108 | This bill implements significant reforms in the juvenile justice system by revising detention criteria and adopting risk assessment tools. It aims to improve decision-making processes, promote fairness, and reduce the unnecessary detention of juveniles, focusing on rehabilitative rather than punitive measures. |
| SB 21-071 | This bill limits the use of detention facilities for juveniles, prohibiting detention for certain offenses such as truancy. It also introduces requirements for hearings, reviews, and individualized assessments to ensure that detention is used only as a last resort and in the best interest of the youth. |
| HB 22-1003 | This bill creates a two-year pilot program aimed at reducing youth violence, crime, and delinquency. |
| HB 22-1056 | This bill provides funding for placing juveniles in temporary shelters to avoid detention until a more appropriate setting is found. |
| HB 23-1249 | This bill changes funding structures for Collaborative Management Programs from incentive- to formula-based and requires reports on services received by youth through these programs. |
| HB 23-1269 | This bill requires various state departments to better understand the behavioral health needs of children and youth including requiring the Colorado Department of Human Services to create a plan for when residential treatment facilities for youth close or modify their operations. |
| HB 23-1307 | The bill allocates resources to enhance services for detained youth, including community-based programs and incentives for providers to support youth outside of detention. It establishes temporary emergency detention beds to address immediate needs while emphasizing rehabilitation and reducing recidivism. |
| HB 24-006 | This bill allows District Attorneys' offices to consider the use of juvenile diversion programs instead of formal delinquency proceedings for youth with behavioral or mental health programs. |
Policy Recommendation
Evidence suggests that youth involvement in the criminal justice system should be avoided when possible; however, crimes committed by people under the age of 18 have grown increasingly violent in recent years. The cap on youth detention beds has been deployed to ensure careful evaluation of each youth offender and whether their case and risk factors warrant detention for public safety or to ensure compliance with court appearances and orders. The strain on the youth detention system with the increase in violent crimes, the increasing treatment needs of offenders, and lack of sufficient residential placements merits the need for a higher detention bed cap. This should be paired with ongoing funding of treatment services.
Use a formula and annual evaluation process to determine caseload to set the statewide detention bed cap annually.
DYS should have a goal of operating under their strained capacity level of 90% of beds full. Levels of crime and subsequent possible detentions fluctuate based on myriad factors, and a static bed cap is not sufficiently responsive to these fluctuations. Additionally, setting the bed cap for the entire state does not consider how beds are managed by catchment area. Beds are managed first at the judicial district level and then at the catchment area level, but juvenile offenders will not be transferred farther than 50 miles from their place of residence. Transfers of juveniles require police escorts, which limits police resources, and puts strain on the detained offender’s family and defense attorney to visit. This limits the bed cap to the catchment area instead of the state, therefore the bed cap should be set by catchment area which can be summed to determine the state cap instead of vice versa.
An annual process should be established to set the bed cap to respond to crime rates while ensuring that there continues to be cautious consideration of not detaining juvenile offenders that could be better served through other community resources or programs. Detention population forecasts, working group established in 19-2.5-1405, C.R.S., and reporting requirements per Senate Bill 21-071 already exist that can evaluate the annual bed allocation.
The goal of the following process would be to keep Division of Youth Services facilities operating at 85% capacity while ensuring that those juvenile offenders that do not pose a risk of serious harm or of risk of flight from prosecution are released to community-based programs and services or to their relatives or guardians.
An evaluation of juvenile crime data and detention bed use, strain, and max counts should be completed at the end of a fiscal year to determine what percent capacity each judicial district, DYS facility, catchment area, and the state are operating at and how that compares to arrests, the severity of the crimes committed, and the number of offenders that screen into secure detention.
A formula can be established to ensure that facilities are not strained:
Average(Average Daily Population + Max Count*)/0.85 = Bed Cap
*Since there is currently no forecast for annual max counts, a ratio of ADP:Max Count can be calculated for the prior three fiscal years and averaged to estimate the max counts based on the ADP forecasts.
This formula should be applied to each catchment area to determine the number of beds needed in each region. The number derived for each region should be summed to determine the statewide bed cap.
After the Legislative Council Staff Youth Detention Population forecast is released in December, the working group picks a detention forecast for the following fiscal year based on prior years’ forecast accuracy and crime and detention trends mid-year. In addition to the forecast, information to be considered includes:
the number of screenings for detention and their outcomes;
any screening overrides by the judicial system;
the severity of crimes being committed by juvenile offenders;
the average length of stay and factors contributing to longer lengths of stays; and
any other relevant data and information.
The working group makes a recommendation based on the chosen forecast and data analyzed.
If this formula were in place during FY 2023-24, the bed cap would have been 257.
Enhance focus on residential treatment bed capacity
The lack of capacity at residential treatment facilities puts a strain on youth detention facilities and leads to longer stays in detention unnecessarily. This is not a new issue in the state, but it is one that would benefit from greater attention or funding to close the gaps. The treatment facilities for behavioral and mental health or substance abuse can serve to help treat juveniles in or out of the juvenile justice system. Appropriate treatment is shown to help prevent juveniles from engaging in antisocial behavior and serve as a preventative measure, as well as a recidivism reduction measure.
Any cuts to detention or commitment beds in the future should reallocate that funding towards these services.
Next Steps for Research
This report focuses on the drivers of the use of youth detention beds in Colorado. Various other related avenues could be explored in relation to this issue, including:
factors contributing to the recent rise in juvenile violence,
reasons there is a lack of residential treatment beds in Colorado,
evidence-based practices to reduce juvenile recidivism, and
evidence-based practices for youth violence prevention.