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The U.S. consistently ranks highest in child poverty rates among industrialized nations. A 2009 report by UNICEF found the child poverty rate in the United States to be 23.1 percent, above only Romania which had a rate of 25.5 percent.

Child poverty is defined in this study as a household in which disposable income is less than 50% of the national median income, adjusted for makeup and family size.

Youth incarceration is another issue—albeit an underreported one—which disproportionately affects American children of color and those in poverty. As a report released on Thursday 3 March by Youth First Initiative found, youth incarceration rates in America are staggering.

The comprehensive study suggests there are currently some 54,000 minors incarcerated across the United States, in all manner of institutions. Among them are so-called training schools, residential treatment facilities, boot camps, detention centers, juvenile correctional centers, youth centers and group homes.

But the youth prison, which is nearly indistinguishable from an adult detention center, is probably most harmful.

States spend more than $5 billion annually to maintain youth prisons, essentially devoting the majority of its resources to maintain the juvenile prison industrial complex.

“Even though youth incarceration has decreased in the last decade, states are still relying on youth prisons, a relic of an 1820’s justice system, that is harmful, racially biased and obsolete,” Liz Ryan, CEO of Youth First, said in a press release.

The racial disparities in youth imprisonment are staggering. “African-American youth are 5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, Native American youth are 3.2 times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, and Latino youth are 2 times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth,” reads the study.

In New York state, according to the 2013 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement, African American male youths were incarcerated at a rate of 51% compared to 26% white male youths.

Black girls were ten times more likely to be incarcerated than white girls in Utah; the same for Native American girls in that state.

The research shows a map of the approximately 80 youth detention facilities in the U.S. that were either established more than 100 years ago or have more than 100 beds.

Such facilities are primarily state-run, however as in the adult-prison world, a handful of juvenile detention facilities contract with private companies. The privatization of prisons is a huge component of the Prison-Industrial Complex in America, because when more bodies means more money, there is incentive to arrest and detain as many prisoners as possible.

The report goes on to show the effect on families of youth incarceration, especially monetarily as this is the most easily quantified picture of these practices. In New York state, the annual cost of confinement for a juvenile is $352,663 as compared to $19,818 for a public school education. More often than not, families of incarcerated children are actually expected to pay some or all of the costs of imprisonment which sends families into debt and incentivizes pleading down cases so as to avoid prison.

Youth First Initiative seeks to close youth detention facilities and provide community-based alternatives to children. With the publishing of its latest research, president and CEO Liz Ryan made clear at a press conference that the group’s aim is to reform the system. "We believe that youth prison model should be abandoned and replaced with more humane and less costly alternatives to incarceration," Ryan said.