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- Title
Inequitable access to sport in juvenile justice across the USA: findings from a national survey.
- Authors
McDonough, Kalyn; Knight, Erin K
- Abstract
Summary: The USA incarcerates more young people than any other industrialized nation in the world, and black youth are much more likely to be incarcerated than white youth. Young people who interface with the criminal justice system are at higher risk for poor health upon release and the justice system is believed to be a contributor to racial health disparities. Sport participation during incarceration has the potential to improve health and health equity, but the evidence on the health benefits of youth sport participation has almost exclusively focused on school and community settings in the USA with little attention to non-traditional settings, such as the justice system. Given the poor health consequences of incarceration, the potential of sport to improve health, and the lack of research on this phenomenon in the USA, our objective was to describe the landscape of sport programming in juvenile correctional facilities and provide a baseline understanding upon which future research can build. Through a cross-sectional survey of all long-term secure juvenile correctional facilities in the USA (n = 211), we found 55.1% operate a sport program. Among facilities with programs, there was a range of sport program offerings. Gender disparities in access to various types of programs exist, with girls generally having less opportunity than boys. Most facilities reported a purpose of positive youth development in the operation of their programs. These findings have important implications for health promotion and the further integration of sport and juvenile justice as part of a public health agenda. Lay Summary: In the USA, we have more young people in prison than anywhere in the world. Time in prison is linked with a wide range of negative consequences, including worse health. Research on young people in general shows that participating in sports has the potential to protect them from a range of risky behaviors and can improve their health. It follows that sports in prison may help to protect those particularly at-risk youth from the negative health consequences of incarceration. Because so little is known about the availability of sport programs in youth prisons in the USA, we conducted a survey of the most restrictive facilities across the country and found that just over half offer sport programs to the young people in their care. Further, we found that girls in prison had less opportunity to play sports than boys. It was encouraging to learn that most of the facilities that offer sports do so with the purpose of promoting positive development which is often found in traditional sport programs and may improve the wellbeing of young people. More research is needed to see if these programs actually result in positive health impacts for young people who are incarcerated.
- Subjects
UNITED States; PREVENTION of juvenile delinquency; RACISM; CORRECTIONAL institutions; CROSS-sectional method; SPORTS; PUBLIC health; SURVEYS; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; HEALTH equity; DATA analysis software; HEALTH promotion; CRIMINAL justice system
- Publication
Health Promotion International, 2023, Vol 38, Issue 2, p1
- ISSN
0957-4824
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/heapro/daac170