Examining Juvenile Justice System Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Policy Scan

We conducted a comprehensive policy scan across 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico to document how juvenile justice systems responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented disruption to institutional operations affecting confined youth. Our policy scan included coding across six overarching topics: emergency preparedness, visitation, intakes, transfers and waivers, releases, education and probation. We coded 32 variables related to juvenile justice system responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We placed special emphasis on (1) policies related to statewide efforts to reduce the juvenile justice population during the pandemic, and (2) policies related to mitigating spread of infection (by implementing screening and social distancing measures). This study documents efforts to reduce the juvenile justice population (through intakes and releases), to protect the health and wellbeing of young people and staff, and to balance the needs for youth development with physical safety in domains such as visitation and education within juvenile detention and confinement facilities. Our findings offer important insights into the structure and resilience of juvenile justice systems during emergencies. Across jurisdictions, we identify three key themes: (1) widespread, but uneven, efforts to reduce detention populations through changes in intake and release practices; (2) rapid, and often improvised, adoption of technology to maintain services such as education, court access, and family contact; and (3) significant variation in the documentation and public availability of policy changes. Notably, we observed gaps in documentation across politically diverse states, suggesting that transparency during crisis response is shaped less by ideology and more by administrative capacity and infrastructure. By highlighting disparities not only in policy responses but also in their visibility, this study contributes a critical evidence base for understanding how juvenile justice systems function under stress. These findings underscore the need for stronger documentation practices, greater institutional preparedness, and more equitable transparency to ensure accountability and informed decision-making in future public health or system-wide crises.