A new report from the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) reveals that youth of color with disabilities are disproportionately subject to physical assault by staff while incarcerated. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, underscores what advocates have long warned: racism and ableism combine to make neurodivergent youth of color particularly vulnerable inside the juvenile legal system.
“These children were already among the most vulnerable to involvement in the juvenile legal system, but as the system decarcerates, their vulnerability is compounded by the fact that they are also among the most likely to suffer abuse while confined,” wrote Emily Widra, senior research analyst at PPI.
The study, led by Brianna Suslovic and colleagues at the University of Chicago, used data from the 2018 National Survey of Youth in Custody, a federal dataset of nearly 7,000 incarcerated youth. Their findings are stark: Black youth have 79% higher odds of reporting staff physical assault than white youth, and neurodivergent youth have 59% higher odds of reporting assault than their neurotypical peers. For neurodivergent youth of color, the odds of reporting staff assault were more than double those of white, neurotypical peers.
These numbers highlight not only the persistence of racial disparities in confinement, but also the compounded risks faced by children with diagnoses such as ADHD, dyslexia, and autism.
Even as the overall rate of youth incarceration has plummeted—falling from 113 per 100,000 in 2003 to just 34 per 100,000 in 2023—youth of color and those with disabilities remain overrepresented. According to the study, nearly two-thirds of confined youth qualify as neurodivergent under the researchers’ criteria, and more than half of those youth are Black, Hispanic, or Indigenous.
“The confined population still reflects the racist and ableist trends of the nation’s criminal legal system,” Widra explained. “Children with histories of abuse, lower education levels, learning disabilities, and children of color are disproportionately locked up, where they are at heightened risk of physical assault at the hands of the very people charged with their care.”
The study also situates staff violence within broader failures of the juvenile legal system. PPI notes that more than one in ten youth in custody reported being physically assaulted by staff, but the rate was significantly higher for neurodivergent youth. Black youth in particular reported victimization at troubling levels, with nearly one in six describing incidents of assault.
Such treatment contradicts the rehabilitative goals of juvenile facilities. As Widra emphasized, “Given the pronounced failure of youth incarceration to significantly reduce ‘delinquent’ behaviors and the dangers children experience behind bars, the findings from this study signal a need to reevaluate our nation’s use of incarceration for children.”
The study arrives amid national debates about how best to support system-involved youth. With facilities often relying on solitary confinement, excessive force, and punitive responses to disability-related behaviors, advocates argue that incarcerated youth face dangers that worsen their conditions rather than promote rehabilitation.
The Prison Policy Initiative argues that the disproportionate victimization of neurodivergent youth of color must be a central concern in decarceration efforts. The report urges policymakers to expand alternatives to incarceration, strengthen disability protections in schools, and invest in community-based support systems that prevent youth from entering carceral settings in the first place.
The PPI study reinforces a grim truth: while youth incarceration has declined overall, the system that remains is increasingly concentrated with the children most marginalized by race, disability, and poverty. These are the very youth most likely to face violence in confinement.
As the Prison Policy Initiative warns, the findings should compel lawmakers to act: “Children most at risk of abuse must be kept at the forefront of decarceration efforts, and we must ensure they don’t enter youth jails and prisons in the first place.”
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