The Remarkable Decline of Milwaukee’s Youth Prison Population

At the end of 2023, Milwaukee County officials recorded a decline from the year prior in the number of local youth that were sentenced to state juvenile prisons.

The first few months of data for 2024 suggest the decline is holding. Which is part a stunning, decade-long reduction for the county.

In its latest report on youth commitments to state correctional facility, the county’s Division of Youth and Family Services noted there were 31 boys from Milwaukee County incarcerated at the Lincoln Hills School for Boys, down from 37 in December. The average daily population for the month of March this year was 17, which is the lowest figure the county has on record.

Ultimately, the county officials have talked for years about wanting to reach a point where zero Milwaukee county youth are sentenced to state prisons.

In 2022, the population of Milwaukee youth in state facilities spiked to above 50 after years of consecutive declines, imperiling the county’s plans for alternatives to incarceration by the state, and for alternatives to incarceration in general. But within months the number began to go down, continuing what has been a remarkable decline in the average daily population, dropping from about 130 in 2015 to less than 20 this year.

Reducing the number of youth sentenced to state prisons is critical to the success of a major reorienting of the county’s juvenile corrections policy, which is already in motion. Not only will it save the county money in corrections fees charged by the state — funding that could otherwise be directed toward prevention programs — but it will allow the county to get closer to zero youth in state facilities.

The county is building out a $31.3 million addition to the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center, 10201 W Watertown Plank Rd., which will house an expanded incarceration alternative program that should allow the county to keep most of the youth sentenced to periods of confinement in Milwaukee County — as opposed to the troubled state prisons that were investigated and raided by the FBI for allegations of abuse.

The new facility will expand an existing county juvenile justice program that involves a shorter period of incarceration and features behavioral therapy and education aimed at treating the root causes of the behavior that brought the youth into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place.

The majority of funding for the new facility comes from the state, and the concept for it stems from an attempt by state legislators to redesign and reform the state’s youth corrections system in 2017. The legislation aimed to decentralize the system so youth served sentences closer to home. But the state did not provide enough funding for counties to move forward with projects. Funding for the expansion of the Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center was approved in 2022.