South Carolina's American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU-SC) chapter released a report Wednesday that looks into the state Department of Juvenile Justice (SCDJJ). The report, "Youth Behind the Fence," details what the organization says is a pattern of "traumatization, criminalization, and widening racial inequality" in the juvenile justice system.
The major takeaways of the report focus on three things; the first being the number of children detained on status offenses. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, status offenses are "nondelinquent (and noncriminal) act[s] that [are] illegal for underage individuals." These offenses can be things such as truancy, running away, or violating underage drinking laws.
In the report, the ACLU-SC says that in the fiscal year of 2025, 14% of SCDJJ referrals — a formal process by law enforcement, solicitor, or a school referring youth to SCDJJ — and 8% of detentions were for status offenses.
ACLU-SC Communications Director Paul Bowers says state lawmakers must address this.
"Federal law has required us to stop incarcerating these children for quite a long time," he says. "It's better for the kids to find other ways to help them."
The federal law Bowers is referring to is the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (1974), which was reauthorized in Juvenile Justice Reform Act (2018). The act prohibits the detention of status offenders in juvenile detention or adult jails.
Courtney Thomas, the ACLU-SC’s political director, says that in a state known for its “fiscal conservatism,” like South Carolina, the state continues to spend state money to incarcerate children “who would be better served in their communities.”
The ACLU-SC alleges there are "dangers" posed to children within the juvenile system. The reports says SCDJJ is "required by law" to rehabilitate the young people in its care, saying that instead it functions similar to the adult prison system, "punishing, isolating, and re-traumatizing some of the state's most vulnerable youth."
"The majority of the children, if not all of the children at SCDJJ, already have been traumatized," says attorney and youth advocate Dr. Aleksandra Chauhan of Chauhan Law Firm in Columbia. "And what they experience at SCDJJ is either direct violence or they actually witness violence on a daily basis. If SCDJJ was a parent, the courts would have taken their parental rights away a long time ago."
Bowers says there were more than 2,000 critical incidents reported last year. The report cites annual mandatory reports submitted to the South Carolina Department of Children's Advocacy detailing critical incidents report. Some of the numbers: 848 physical injury incidents, 512 substantial risk of injury incidents, 216 suicidal ideation incidents, and 27 near fatality incidents.
Professor Madalyn Wasilczuk, an associate law professor at USC and director of the Youth Defender Clinic, says studies demonstrate children going into the criminal legal system are "more likely" to commit future offenses. "It's because of what incarceration does to a child," she says. "We are creating future public safety problems for ourselves."
Additionally, the reports discusses the "widening" racial inequality of SCDJJ, what Bowers says is a "longstanding face" about the juvenile justice system in South Carolina. Bowers says the lack of public data is one of the reasons the report was published,.
"SCDJJ stopped publishing its own records," he says, "You could get demographics of the kids in their care along with what charges they were in for ... [but] they stopped publishing those records after 2021."
According to the Wednesday report, Black children made up 3 out of 4 children detained by SCDJJ in 2025. It also says solicitors and schools refer a "disproportionate number" of Black children to SCDJJ. Roughly 28% of South Carolina's youth population is Black, however, more than 60% that are referred to SCDJJ and more than 75% of those children detained by SCDJJ.
For the report, the ACLU-SC interviewed children who were in SCDJJ and the adults who worked in the system as well, including a mental health professional who worked in SCDJJ facilities 2023-2024. According to this professional, "entire cohorts of new [corrections] officers would start and quit in a matter of weeks."
Chauhan says the high turnover rate observed at SCDJJ impacts the safety of the children.
"They need people that are trained," Chauhan says, "[and] have a great understanding of what's happening, [the] policies. There have to be people there taking care of children."
She says the turnover is a "great hurdle" for SCDJJ to be a safe and stable place for children.
"If people are quitting every couple weeks and [the kids] don't know these people, they are not in an environment where they are being treated as children," Wasilczuk says. "And being given the kind of guidance and supervision and, frankly, compassion and care and understanding that children need in order to grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults."
"I don't want folks to forget that these are just children," says Thomas.
To read the full report from the ACLU-SC, it is publicly available here.
