Legal Issues Relating to Conditions of Confinement for Youth in Adult Facilities

Youth detained in adult facilities under criminal court jurisdiction have the right to humane treatment, mental health & medical care, education, due process protection, and access to their families and the courts. These rights extend to children who are confined in juvenile detention centers, training schools, adult jails and prisons, and other secure institutions. These rights emanate from the U.S. Constitution and federal laws, including the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act; from state constitutions and laws; and from court interpretations of these laws. This provides a summary of the major legal cases that guide the care of juveniles in correctional facilities. 

      Conditions for convicted adult prisoners, and juveniles convicted under adult court jurisdiction only violate the U.S. Constitution where they amount to “cruel and unusual punishment” under the eighth amendment (see Rhodes v. Chapman). Adult facilities must provide for basic needs, including adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and protection from violence. To determine whether a particular condition or practice is cruel or unusual in an adult institution, courts evaluate whether the condition poses a substantial risk of serious harm and whether officials acted with “deliberate indifference” to the rights of the inmate (see Wilson v. Seiter and Farmer v. Brennan).

      Youth may be entitled to additional protection under state laws or regulations. For example, most states have laws giving children a right to treatment and rehabilitation. In addition, many states have laws that require that children be placed in the least restrictive environment consistent with public safety needs or that prohibit the detention of children under juvenile court jurisdiction in adult facilities. Also, some states have laws or regulations setting standards for maximum inmate population sizes, building conditions, health and safety requirements, and programming mandates for facilities where children are detained.

      The determination of whether a condition or practice violates the constitution or other laws depends on the particular case and the specific legal issue raised. Cases do not have identical circumstances. Thus, to assess the risk of lawsuits, correctional authorities must be knowledgeable about the cases most analogous to their situation and must realize that slight differences in facts could change the ruling. For this reason, the case law citations included in this overview as a starting point for research should not be taken as the definitive authority for cases involving similar issues. Also, this overview provides citations only to published cases—that is, cases appearing in the official court reports.

Many issues considered here have also been taken up by the American Bar Association Standards on Interim Status, American Correctional Association Standards for Juvenile Correctional Facilities, National Commission on Correctional Health Care Standards, and U.S. Department of Justice Standards for the Administration of Juvenile Justice. Professional standards reflect the collective wisdom of professionals in the field, and courts often use them as a guide for determining whether laws have been violated.

Complying with professional standards does not insulate facilities from liability. Many facilities have been successfully sued, even though they complied with the standards of a professional organization. This situation may occur when the standards do not address a particular issue or when the standards require only that there be an institutional policy on the issue without specifying its contents. The shortcomings of many commonly used standards prompted the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to call for the development of performance-based standards that specify the outcomes facilities should achieve (Parent and Leiter, 1994).

The constitutional standard for measuring violations under the due process clause, commonly used for children and pretrial detainees, is whether the detainees are being held under conditions that “amount to punishment” (see Gary H. v. Hegstrom and Bell v. Wolfish). These standards give more protection to children than would be afforded to convicted adult prisoners under the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the eighth amendment. In adult prison cases, inmates must show that the deprivation was sufficiently serious to constitute cruel and unusual punishment in that it involves the “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain” and that the official acted with “deliberate indifference” (see Wilson v. Seiter and Farmer v. Brennan). The due process clause is a less rigorous standard and broadens the rights of juveniles.



This overview focuses primarily on federal civil rights litigation. State laws may create additional liabilities, eliminate certain defenses (such as immunity) for defendants, and determine who will be reimbursed or indemnified in damage cases. For example, lawsuits may be filed under state tort law or other specific statutes such as the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.